"Profit, Empire, Industry. What was a dead lake, a few poisoned rivers, a few slagged hillsides? Priorities, that was what it was about. Priorities and Progress."

“Nationalism, then Islamism, both twentieth-century inventions, destroyed the Greek civilization in Egypt that had endured for three thousand years.”

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

“A chilly piety leaked into the air.”

“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.”

“Legends should stay legends; otherwise they just become history, when the natural course of things is the other way around, from history to legend.”

“It was fate, and being angry at fate was as futile as being angry at the weather.”