Quotes About Culture

but as he no longer stands on his native soil, his art can't possibly have roots. An artist creates true art for his people only as long as he lives, and suffers, among them.

Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.

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.

We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart

Conrad,Nabokov, Naipaul - these are writers known for having managed to migrate between languages, cultures, countries, continents, even civilizations. Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness. My imagination however, requires that I stay in the same street, in the same house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul's fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am.

La sabiduría de una ciudad no hay que medirla por los sabios que acoge, ni por sus bibliotecas, ni por sus ilustradores, calígrafos y medersas, sino por el número de crímenes tortuosos cometidos en sus calles oscuras a lo largo de miles de años.

Köpekler bizden olmayan? sezer, anlar. Onlarda bu haslet Allah vergisidir. Bu yüzden Avrupal?lar? taklit etmek isteyenler köpeklerden korkar. Osmanl?'n?n belkemiÄŸi Yeniçerileri katlederek Bat?l?lar'a bizi ezdiren II. Mahmut Ä°stanbul'un köpeklerini de katletmiÅŸ, öldüremediklerini Hay?rs?zada'ya sürgün etmiÅŸti.

recuerdo que lo que hace especial a una ciudad no son solo su topografía ni las apariencias concretas de edificios y personas, la mayor parte de las veces creadas a partir de casualidades, sino los recuerdos que ha ido reuniendo la gente que, como yo, ha vivido cincuenta años en las mismas calles, las letras, los colores, las imágenes y la consistencia de las casualidades ocultas o expresas, que es lo que mantiene todo unido.

Like most Istanbul Turks I had little interest in Byzantium as a child. I associated the word with spooky, bearded, black-robed Greek Orthodox priests, with the aqueducts that still ran through the city, with the Hagia Sophia and the red brick walls of old churches. To me, these were remnants of an age so distant there was little need to know about it. Even the Ottomans who conquered Byzantium seemed very far away.

Writers like Pierre Loti, by contrast, make no secret of loving Istanbul and the Turkish people for the opposite reason: for the preservation of their eastern particularity and their resistance to becoming western.

Sen Rousseau filan diyorsun. Ne ilgisi var onlar?n burayla?.. Rousseau Türkiye'de yaÅŸasayd? bir falakadan geçirir adam ederlerdi.

Ä°ÅŸte bu doÄŸru. Burada, Türkiye'de insan hiçbir ÅŸeye akl?yla inanamaz.

We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private.

We read novels because we want to see the world through other experiences, other beings, other eyes, other cultures.

Sibel, Bat? d??? ülkelerin, özellikle Ä°slam ülkelerinin burjuvalar?n?n yerinde sezgisiyle, psikanalizi aile içi dayan??ma ve s?r paylaÅŸma yoluyla tedavi al??kanl??? olmayan Bat?l?lar için icat edilmiÅŸ bilimsel bir s?r verme ritüeli olarak görürdü.

en el país de los infieles francos todos los perros tienen dueño. Al parecer los pasean por las calles arrastrándolos con cadenas al cuello como si fueran los más miserables esclavos. Dicen que además introducen a esos pobres perros a sus casas y que incluso los meten en sus camas. ... No son cosas que los francos puedan comprender el que los perros paseemos en manadas y gavillas por la calles de nuestro Estambul...

Although everyone knew it as freedom from the laws of Islam, no one was quite sure what else westernization was good for.

My fear, which I shared with everyone in the Turkish secular bourgeoisie, was not of God but of the fury of those who believed in Her too much.

Toplumlar?n hayat?n? belirleyen önemli ÅŸeyler insanlar?n birbirlerine benzeyen yanlar?ndan deÄŸil, benzemeyen yanlar?ndan ç?k?yordu.

Asl?nda hemen evlenelim demeliydim ona. Toplumumuzu ayakta tutan pek çok saÄŸlam evlilik bu tür f?rt?nal? ve mutsuz aÅŸklar? unutmak için yap?lm??t?r.

We used to be brothers and sisters here. Kurdish, did not know he was. Turkmenians, Germans, they all existed here but never were proud of it. That pride was only distributed by the powers who aimed to destroy Turkey.

Por aquellos años su padre comprendía que un pueblo podía cambiar su modo de vida, su historia, su tecnología, su cultura, su arte y su literatura, pero no le concedía la menor posibilidad de que cambiara sus gestos.

Roman sanat? kendi yaÅŸad???m?z hikayeleri baÅŸkalar?n?n hikayesi gibi, baÅŸkalar?n?n yaÅŸad??? hikayeleri de kendimiz yaÅŸam???z gibi yazabilme hünerine dayan?r.

whenever I sense the absence of Western eyes, I become my own Westerner.