Book: Istanbul Bastard. Page 1

He was firmly convinced that zealous nationalism would only lead out of the fire and into the fire and would inevitably aggravate the situation of the oppressed and disadvantaged. As a result, minorities sought autonomy at a high price, only in order to create their oppressors within themselves. Nationalism joins the ranks of the oppressors. Previously, you were oppressed by foreign invaders, and now you are oppressed by your own tribesmen.

Children of parents who smoke are three times more likely to become smokers themselves.

Aunt Feride sleeps across the hallway. She is an intelligent, educated woman, studied at the university, she has a creative nature. If only she could find at least some integrity. She's so sensitive, it's very unusual and gorgeous, but sometimes it's very scary. She never has solid ground under her feet, because anything can happen at any time. She doesn't know what it's like to feel life as something continuous and safe. Everything is at all times, it is surrounded by fragments of reality, they pray that it unites them, resist any idea of unity. Again and again, Aunt Feride dreams of a lover. She wants to be loved in her entirety, accepting even her countless fears, oddities, and pathologies. She needs a lover who will adore absolutely everything in her. Aunt Ferida does not need a lover who would love her light side and shun her dark side. She needs a person who would stay with her in grief, and in joy, in madness and in mental health. Perhaps, she thinks, that is why it is more difficult for crazy people to have an affair - not because they do not have all the houses, but because few are ready to meet several personalities in one person at once.

In order for the heart to heal, it is necessary to give the eyes a rest.

For her, time has long ceased to be linear. It is now like a highway without road signs, without signal lights, without signs. She is free to go in any direction or rebuild from row to row. Or she can stand in the middle of the road and out of place, she can refuse to go forward, because in her life there is no longer any "forward", there are only constantly repeated disparate fragments.

If somewhere out there, in the seventh heaven, there is an all-seeing eye, a Divine gaze, vigilantly looking at each of us from a height, then he would have to look at Istanbul for a rather long time to find out what was happening behind closed doors and whether blasphemous speech. From the sky, this city, probably, appears as a flickering pattern of multi-colored flashes of firecrackers that lit up the darkness, spreading in all directions. Right now it glows in all shades of red, orange and yellow. The drawing consists of sparks, and each spark was lit by someone who does not sleep that night. If you look from above, from there, from the abode of the Heavenly Gaze, all these random bulbs, probably, make up a harmonious whole, and their glimpses are like secret writing, signs that are understandable to God alone.

They talked and held themselves as if no words could express their inner world anyway, and language, in the end, was just a disgusting skeleton of rotten words.

Only after sleeping with a man, you can surely understand whether he suits you at all. Only in bed do the deepest, hidden complexes appear; and no matter what people say, sex is more sensible than physical.

This is a big plus in fortune telling on the coffee grounds: unlike the fate foretold from above, what is written on coffee can always be washed off.

She seemed to be lost in boundless empty spaces, she became so small, and around there was a huge earth, a huge sky, huge stars and a huge painful choice.

The past is a vicious circle. Loop. It pulls us in and makes us run in circles like a squirrel in a wheel. And we repeat. Over and over again.

Historical memory keeps a lot of sorrow, but only it gives us life and unity.

It's a strange thing, you have so much poison inside, but despite this poison, or maybe just because of it, you are a very special one for me, a kindred spirit, or something. And I love you. I immediately fell in love with you when you first entered the Kundera cafe and looked with anxious look.

What is the past? Shackles to be thrown off. It's such a heavy burden. If only I had no past at all, if I could become a no one, reset and stay at zero forever! Light as a feather. Without family, without memories and other cargo.