Taraneh Alidoosti

“Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

“What made more sense was that the bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing. The bargain was already in force. Days and years and feelings much the same, except that the children would grow up, and there might be one or two more of them and they too would grow up, and she and Brendan would grow older and then old.
It was not until now, not until this moment, that she had seen so clearly that she was counting on something happening, something which would change her life. She had accepted her marriage as one big change, but not as the last one.
So, nothing now but what she or anybody else could sensibly foresee. That was to be her happiness, that was what she had bargained for, nothing secret, or strange.
Pay attention to this, she thought. She had a dramatic notion of getting down on her knees. This is serious...
It was a long time ago that this happened. In North Vancouver, when they lived in the Post and Beam house. When she was twenty-four years old and new to bargaining.”
― Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

“There's a lot of pride involved in my refusal to believe in god.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people behave. If you ask me, being cultured and civilized is not about everyone being free and equal; it's about everyone being refined enough to act as if they were. Then no one has to feel guilty.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence