Quotes About Istanbul

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

With the engine stalled, we would notice the deep silence reigning in the park around us, in the summer villa before us, in the world everywhere. We would listen enchanted to the whirring of an insect beginning vernal flight before the onset of spring, and we would know what a wondrous thing it was to be alive in a park on a spring day in Istanbul.

To be able to see the Bosphorus, even from afar—for ?stanbullus this is a matter of spiritual import that may explain why windows looking out onto the sea are like the mihrabs in mosques, the altars in Christian churches, and the tevans in synagogues, and why all the chairs, sofas, and dining tables in our Bosphorus-facing sitting rooms are arranged to face the view.

Whenever I find myself talking of the beauty and the poetry of the Bosphorus and Istanbul's dark streets, a voice inside me warns against exaggeration, a tendency perhaps motivated by a wish not to acknowledge the lack of beauty in my own life. If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too. A

The difference lies in the fact that in Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible. No matter how ill-kept, no matter how neglected or hemmed in they are by concrete monstrosities, the great mosques and other monuments of the city, as well as the lesser detritus of empire in every side street and corner—the little arches, fountains, and neighborhood mosques—inflict heartache on all who live among them. These

These exhibitions, and the stories behind them, should also in due course have their own catalogs and novels. As visitors admire the objects and honor the memory of Füsun and Kemal, with due reverence, they will understand that, like the tales of Leyla and Mecnun or Hüsn and AÈ™k, this is not simply a story of lovers, but of the entire realm, that is, of Istanbul.

Masumiyet Müzesi, Ä°stanbul'da öpüÅŸecek bir yer bulamayan â??klara sonsuza kadar aç?k kalacakt?r.

I've never left Istanbul, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood.

As in many other cities, money no longer had any value in Istanbul. At the time I returned from the East, bakeries that once sold large one-hundred drachma loaves of bread for one silver coin now baked loaves half the size for the same price, and they no longer tasted the way they did during my childhood.

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.

There are three types of buildings in Istanbul," he used to say: (1) those full of devout families where people say their daily prayers and leave their shoes outside, (2) rich and Westernized homes where you can go in with your shoes on, (3) new high-rise blocks where you can find a mix of both sorts.

After becoming engaged to my grandfather, and before marrying him, she did something rather brave in Istanbul in 1917—she went out with him to a restaurant.

Ä°stanbul'da, a??rl??? biraz deÄŸiÅŸse de, milyonlarca kiÅŸinin yar?m yüzy?ld?r kat?k olarak yaln?zca bu ekmeÄŸi yediÄŸini hat?rlatmak ve hayat?n bir tekrar olduÄŸuna, ama sonra her ÅŸeyin ac?mas?zl?kla unutulduÄŸuna iÅŸaret etmek de istiyorum.

Now he knew what it was that he wanted to tell Istanbul and write on its walls. It was both his public and his private view; it was what his heart intended as much as what his words had always meant to say. He said it to himself: "I have loved Rayiha more than anything in this world.

Taking our inspiration from an article on the proper way to walk in a city that appeared recently in the celebrated Parisian magazine Matin, we too should make our feelings clear to people who have yet to learn how to conduct themselves on the streets of Istanbul and tell them, "Don't walk down the street with your mouth open" [1924]. It

Bütün hayat?m Ä°stanbul'un yak?l?p, y?k?l?p, tahrip edilip deÄŸiÅŸtirilmesinin hikayesidir. Bu, insan?n kendi hat?ralar?n?n, kendi hat?rlad?klar?n?n, baÄŸl? olduÄŸu sokaklar?n, çevrelerin, neredeyse haf?zas?na, ezberine ald??? görüntülerin yok edilmesi hikâyesidir ve benim için çok draml?, ac?l? ve a??r bir hikâyedir.

Gospodine službeni?e, pogledajte te ljude, rekla je i rukom kroz prozor pokazala na grad. Ono što ovih deset miliona ljudi u Istanbulu drži na okupu jeste novac za hleb, interes, ra?un, kamata, vi to znate bolje od mene. Ali postoji samo jedna stvar koja ?oveka drži na nogama u toj vrevi - a to je ljubav. Orhan Pamuk: ?udan ose?aj u meni

To see the city in black and white is to see it through the tarnish of history: the patina of what is old and faded and no longer matters to the rest of the world. Even the greatest Ottoman architecture has a humble simplicity that suggests an end-of-empire gloom, a pained submission to the diminishing European gaze and to an ancient poverty that must be endured like an incurable disease. It is resignation that nourishes Istanbul's inward-looking soul.

Is this the secret of Istanbul—that beneath its grand history, its living poverty, its outward-looking monuments, and its sublime landscapes, its poor hide the city's soul inside a fragile web?

Had I been told Istanbul used to be a poorer, smaller and happier city, I might not have believed it, but that's what my heart told me.

Bizim askerler BaÅŸbakan Menderes'i daha o zamanlar asmam??t?; o da sabah akÅŸam Ä°stanbul'da Kadillak arabas?yla geziyor ve yolunu kesen bütün eski evleri ve konaklar? y?kt?r?p geniÅŸ caddeler açt?r?yordu.

Eskiden Ä°stanbul daha fakir, daha küçük, daha mutluydu deseler inanmazd?m belki, ama kalbim böyle diyordu. Çünkü arkamda b?rakt???m sevgilimin evi yerli yerinde ?hlamur ve kestane aÄŸaçlar?n?n içindeydi, ama kap?dan sordum bir baÅŸkas? oturuyordu art?k orada.

The Istanbul in which they lived was a city littered with the ruins of the great fall, but it was their city. If they gave themselves to melancholic poems about loss and destruction, they would, if discovered, find a voice all their own.