مع الزمن يتحول الألم إلى حزن، ويتحول الحزن إلى صمت، ويتحول الصمت إلى وحدة ضخمة وشاسعة كالمحيطات المظلمة. - Elif Şafak

Kader ’, people called it – ‘destiny’ – and said no more, because people always gave simple names to the complex things that frightened them.

We're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.

An ancient clay tablet read, 'the Babylonian mosquito devil is now in my land; he has slain all the men of my country'. Well, it would have been more accurate if it said, 'she has slain...', as it is the female of the species that causes the carnage, but I guess it's not the first time women have been written out of history.