He has no belief—faith is beneath his dignity—but he enjoys the designed madness of religion. — Ian McDonald

Economics is the most human of sciences. It is the science of wants and frustrations. It is psychology subject to the abstract, amplifying forces of mathematics.

Ayşe Erkoç learned long ago that the secret of doing anything illicit in Istanbul is to do it in full public gaze in the clear light of day. No one ever questions the legitimacy of the blatant.

It was not socialism or communism or Islamism. It was romanticism. There is no more incandescent passion than love in a time of revolution.