The world is no longer the same for the one who has fallen in love, the one who is at its very centre; it can only spin faster from now on. - Elif Şafak

Nalan thought that one of the endless tragedies of human history was that pessimists were better at surviving than optimists, which mean that, logically speaking, humanity carried the genes of people who did not believe in humanity.

البشر يميلون إلى الاستخفاف بما لا يمكنهم فهمه.

But not everyone needs to be a warrior, my dear. Otherwise we’d never have poets, artists, scientists …’ ‘I disagree,’ said Defne into her wine glass. ‘There are moments in life when everyone has to become a warrior of some kind. If you are a poet, you fight with your words; if you are an artist, you fight with your paintings … But you can’t say, “Sorry, I’m a poet, I’ll pass.” You don’t say that when there’s so much suffering, inequality, injustice.