[On Chekhov] Actually in all my films I believe there is an element of Chekhov, because Chekhov wrote so many stories. He had stories about almost every situation, and I love them very much. So maybe he's influenced the way I look at life. Life follows Chekhov for me, in a way. After reading Chekhov, you begin to see the same kind of situations in life. And in the scriptwriting stage, I remember the stories somehow. Show less «

[On words] I don't believe in words. In general, people lie, they don't tell the truth. The truth lies in what's hidden, in what's not told. Reality lies in the unspoken part of our lives. If you try to talk about your problems, it's not that convincing. People try to protect themselves; everybody has something they want to hide. They try to hide their weak side. When they tell you a story, they make themselves the hero of that story. So without words is better, and it allows the spectator to be more active; he should use his own experience in trying to solve... Show less «

Socrates said that the aim of philosophy is to know oneself. For me, the cinema is the same thing. I try to know myself better, to relieve my pain about life. In your travels, you see different kinds of people, different kinds of lives, and that makes you think. You ask harsh questions of your self. I try to understand what it means to be human. There are certain kinds of people in every culture. These kind of people ask similar questions about life, and it doesn't change in New York or anywhere else. You meet these people in Iran, in Singapore, everywhere. And these kind of people make another kind of nation. Through films, you find your soulmates, who live in the same nation with you. Show less «

I feel a different kind of satisfaction when I finish a photograph. In film, you deal with hundreds of people, which is sometimes difficult. But with photography, you are like God. You are alone. It's a kind of meditation. Show less «

[on the girl with the lamplight in Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011)] This girl is a catalyst. We were searching for a reason why this suspect would confess. An innocent girl could be a reason for the change in his soul. Show less «

[on form] Form itself creates a kind of content. Form is not something, however, that controls the content. Form is in the center and in some ways, for some artists, content emerges from the form. Its certainly very important for me. Content is not content without the form. There is a certain type of event for instance. Different people tell the same event differently. Yet one person tells the event much more clearly, with much more meaning. It's because of his form. The form is what convinces you. Where he puts the silences, whether he looks at you or doesn't at certain points in the story, this is crucial. Somebody tells you a story in person, even if it is a very unimportant thing, if it is done well, you are very interested. They can make the thing really valuable for you. There is always something like that. The form has the ability to make the content more mysterious, more powerful, more real, more light, to imbue it with more truth. It's everything really. Show less «

[Boring the audience] The films that bored me the most in the past became my favorite movies later on. So I don't care about boring the audience. Sometimes, I really want to bore them because out of boredom might come a miracle, maybe days later, maybe years, when they see the film again. Show less «

[On humor] I do see humor in even the most tragic situations. I think humor is always the brother of tragedy or sad things; and I think that with humor tragedy becomes more convincing. Show less «

[on Iklimler (2006)] I think most of the painful feelings in life come from marriage. When I was young, with my father and mother, their problems gave me deep pain. Strindberg says there is nothing worse than a husband and wife who hate each other. If you cannot organise your feelings about this, you will always suffer. Show less «

We need to slow down our life's beat in order to sharpen our perception.

[On how he got into filmmaking] Actually, when I was a child, there was no art at all around me. I was living in a small town and the only art form around was maybe folk music, and maybe film. But there were no art exhibitions or anything like that. I sometimes wonder myself how I inclined to art. I think maybe it started when I was in high school, when I was living in Istanbul. I really don't know, but me, my sister and my cousin all somehow inclined towards art. I remember someone gave me a present of a book about photography. Maybe that started it. So you should be very careful when you buy presents for a small child. I think that book changed my life - it made photography seem a very enjoyable game. I made a darkroom and printed photographs, and with time I began to realize that it's an art. And it grew somehow. Show less «

[on Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011)] There are so many characters in life. Sometimes you cannot know them in certain situations. You have a girlfriend once. You are with her for three years. One day, you go on a trip with her. In three days, you get more information about her than you did in the previous three years. In my last film and in most of the films, there are situations where through those situations you know the characters better. I think in this film something like that is happening. Searching for the body, you can see many characteristics, many properties, of these people more easily. I am fond of situations like that. In Anatolia, I was so interested by showing the different sides of the human soul through life and death. You see the reflections of the characters on many things throughout the story. Show less «

[on ambiguity] The literature always has an advantage over cinema. Because, you know, everybody knows that, that literature also uses the imagination of the reader. We can make the same thing to a certain amount by with ambiguity in cinema. So you can take the imagination of the audience into account and without using it and making the audience active you cannot go deep enough in cinema, I believe. Show less «