Bliss Quotes

“Democracy in a country where the public is uneducated is no different from having a dictatorship or an elected king.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Human beings go through a 'camel phase' during which they carry all the foolish prejudices society burdens them with. Then comes the 'lion phase,' when they fight against all such prejudices. But there's another phase only a few achieve: the childhood phase. It's the highest phase, which requires one to consider life with the naïveté of a child, to play games, to be open to all kinds of influences, and to find one's lost innocence again. That's why I play games.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“The ambassador remarked that in Anatolia there was a belief that women were evil, sinful, and full of guilt. This belief was at the root of the country’s underdevelopment, since in this way half of the nation became ostracized.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Human beings go through a ‘camel phase’ during which they carry all the foolish prejudices society burdens them with. Then comes the ‘lion phase,’ when they fight against all such prejudices. But there’s another phase only a few achieve: the childhood phase. It’s the highest phase, which requires one to consider life with the naïveté of a child, to play games, to be open to all kinds of influences, and to find one’s lost innocence again. That’s why I play games.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“All over the Mediterranean, the concept of honor is still considered to lie between a woman’s thighs, and such murders are still seen as pardonable crimes.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Cemal’s favorite poem was one he had learned during his army days and had never forgotten: “A flag is a flag only when there is blood on it / A country is a country only if you die for it!”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Cemal was amazed how clothes could change a person. In his commando uniform, with his equipment and weapons, he had felt like the ruler of the world. In these funny shorts, he was an incompetent boy. Besides, he had no money, no job, no home, nor anywhere to go. He was like a refugee on the professor’s boat.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Once, when İrfan had asked him what kind of crime was most common in Anatolia, the judge had startled him. İrfan had expected the answer to be homicide or larceny, but the old man told him that it was incest. “Since the girls in the case are ashamed and embarrassed, these incidents are usually not brought before the law. For instance, after a young man gets married and leaves for his military service, his father begins to harass the young bride. Uncles and in-laws rape their nieces. Unfortunately, such incidents are common, and in the end, it’s always the women who pay, either by committing suicide or being murdered.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Human beings were chameleons, with the ability to survive by adapting to their surroundings. Yet some were incompetent, like himself. İrfan was a chameleon who was ready to try everything to adapt to his environment but who struggled in vain to change color—an incompetent chameleon.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Now he understood why most people did not want to leave the safe waters of their lives or to throw themselves headlong into adventures. Security was the reason they remained in their prisons. Their homes and possessions did not prevent them from being free; rather, they protected them against a greater danger—themselves. The established system prevented man from meeting himself face-to-face. Did those who tried to escape end up as he had?”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“On those spring evenings, when the sap began to rise and the air was filled with intoxicating scents, Meryem was filled with an indescribable longing for life. She wanted to live. Her body burned with the desire to live.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Still, she did not allow self-pity to overcome her. She relied on her ability, since childhood, to chase away bad memories. She did not ponder on all the evil done to her in the village; nor did she recall the fear she had felt on the viaduct. Her mind did not return to the past, and an inner strength blanked out her fears and sorrows. The only bad memory she could not erase was that of her aunt making her cry in front of the locked door, as well as the shame she had felt returning to say good-bye as she walked down the muddy road in the village. Her black plastic shoes reminded her of those incidents.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Others rolled on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Cemal’s father had told him that this was a state of ecstasy caused by submission to God through reciting his Holy Name. In fact, it was the result of the effect of the rhythmic chant at a tempo of 124 beats per minute. In Middle Eastern rituals, the name “Allah” recited at this tempo soon sends a person into a trance, this being the same tempo at which the heart beats. The same thing applies in discotheques all over the world, when the drum beats 124 times a minute.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Oh, these, they’re Lukens.” Cemal had never heard of Lukens so had no idea what he meant, though the “Louis Quinze” style was the most popular in Turkey at that time.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“İrfan could not easily give orders to the housemaids. He felt embarrassed to summon these servants and tell them to bring him a beer while all he was doing was sitting with his feet up.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“This was a country that defied definition and was almost impossible to comprehend.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Meryem realized that, for the first time in her life, people were speaking to her politely.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Tie it up!” Meryem immediately bent forward, but the boy’s mother looked up and said, “Shame on you, son! Is that the way to talk to your elders? You’re a big boy now. You can tie your own shoes.” “But isn’t she a maid?” asked the boy. “No, she’s not.” “But she looks just like our maid.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Meryem was one of the millions of girls who became old without really enjoying life. They never had the chance to change their fate.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Alawite children were often confused by the contrast between the religious tolerance in their homes and the Sunnite pressures outside.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“In the village, women were not allowed to talk in the presence of men or eat with them. They had to hide their natural needs and conceal their pregnancies. When a new bride became pregnant, she tried to keep it a secret, though her mother-in-law would probably guess her condition from a growing appetite for pickles or pomegranate syrup. The girl had to continue working until the last day of her pregnancy without crying or complaining. When the labor pains started, the midwife would be summoned to do her job with the minimum of fuss.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“After the Republican revolution in the twenties and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the new secular government had excluded religious education from the national curriculum program at schools. Most children educated during this Kemalist era had little interest in religion, but their national consciousness had been well-developed.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“By command of her uncle, the bearded patriarch of the village, her family had stopped sending her to school after the first grade. It would be immoral for a girl to sit beside a boy, he decreed.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Your dreams are the most sincere moments of your existence.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Don’t you know that the feeling of ceasing to exist can please a man? It gives a unique kind of pleasure to know you are destroying yourself, making others despise you, that your standing has sunk to the lowest rank, and you are falling into the deep pit of being human.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“He pitied the girl for a minute, but everyone knew that customs are customs and had to be followed. Meryem had no chance to survive. Even if her father forgave her, and the sheikh did not interfere, she still could not live. Even if everyone in the village came together to forgive her, she could not be saved.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“The hearts of all of them had been coarsened in the months spent on the mountains and had become dead to human feelings. Just like breaking in a new pair of shoes, when the skin becomes inflamed for some days before becoming callused and immune to pain, they had hardened their hearts in order to survive the cruelties of war.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Like other girls ruined before her, Meryem no longer had the right to live.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“Meryem felt the quiet was somehow related to her—perhaps the aftermath of that terrible event in the cabin. But what did it mean? Could the whole village become silent because of what happened to one young girl? Meryem clutched her blanket. At that moment she understood. The villagers were waiting for her to do her duty. Not only her family but the entire community was waiting silently for her to end the problem.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss

“I must be cursed,” Meryem often thought. And everybody secretly agreed. After all, her mother had died in agony in childbirth, as prophesied in a dream. Meryem must be ill-fated since she had caused the death and brought ill luck to the house. She was unfortunate and would probably end up an unmarried old maid. Even now, at age fifteen, she still had no suitors. No mother wished to have her as a bride in her house.”
― O.Z. Livaneli, Bliss