The Architect's Apprentice Quotes
"Of all the people God created and Sheitan led astray, only a few have discovered the Centre of the Universe – where there is no good and no evil, no past and no future, no ‘I’ and no ‘thou’, no war and no reason for war, just an endless sea of calm."
"What they found there was so beautiful that they lost their ability to speak."
"Those who yearned for completeness would be called ‘the lovers’, and those who aspired to knowledge ‘the learners’."
"I wish I could look back and say that I have learned to love as much as I loved to learn."
"It’s odd how faces, solid and visible as they are, evaporate, while words, made of breath, stay."
"We raised them: Muslims and Christians, craftsmen and galley slaves, humans and animals, day upon day."
"But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master, which are written in stone."
"If only humans could live exposed to the skies, open and unafraid, watching the stars and being watched by them, with nothing to hide."
"Even the gentry had their houses built of poorly baked bricks. He wondered, for the thousandth time, how a city so rich in beauty could be crammed with houses so poorly built."
"A city so vast she expanded left and right, and up towards the firmament, striving to ascend, desiring more, never satisfied."
"Whatever awaited the animal in this new kingdom couldn’t be worse than the voyage he had just endured."
"Letters were not his friends but shapes and pictures were."
"What if they notice I don’t know anything about elephants?" - Jahan
"You know how they punish a man who lies to the Sultan? They lift him to the gibbet … higher and higher … and then … drop him down … on an iron hook." - the Captain
"He wept like the child that he was." - Narration
"Did rodents, like genteel passengers, disembark in file when a boat was in the quay?" - Narration
"Jahan hesitated for the briefest moment – that passing doubt one feels before uttering a lie." - Narration
"If you would be so good, effendi. The beast is sick. He’ll die should he stay in that hold another night." - Jahan
"He collapsed like a puppet without strings." - Narration
"Jahan’s face lit up with expectation. Every chamber under its roof must abound with silks and brocades, he thought." - Narration
"All the boy glimpsed that night, as on the ensuing nights, were massive walls, a mammoth door with iron studs, a courtyard so vast it could have swallowed the world, and more walls." - Narration
"He woke up with a start, surfacing from dark, disturbed dreams." - Narration
"Little did he know that down in his barn Chota was also awake, listening, worrying." - Narration
"Each morning at dawn the tamers washed their faces in a marble fountain that ran so cold their hands turned raw red." - Narration
"She walked towards the elephant, curious to see the animal this close." - Narration
"What a ridiculous thing to say! These are fierce beasts. That’s why we keep them in cages." - Mihrimah
"A voice inside his head, a wiser voice, warned that he should not trust nature to take its course and that he should lend a helping hand."
"In front of him was the tiniest elephant in the empire. And he was as white as boiled rice."
"Pakeeza’s son was almost half the size of other newborns."
"He was taken aback by the sight of her swollen teats."
"Jahan smiled back, realizing they had become milk brothers."
"‘I shall call you Chota,’ he said. ‘But you’ll grow big and strong.’"
"‘Tell me what happened next?’ Mihrimah said."
"You are a strange one, Indian. Or else a gifted liar."
"Be kind to the beast, and to the weak, she might have said."
"You better take yourself off. We don’t need you any more."
"‘The beast must go,’ said one man through half-closed lips."
"‘What for?’ said Majnun Shaykh, his shoulders straightening as he seemed to take a decision. ‘I love the Beloved as the Beloved loves me. Why feel remorse for love?’"
"You think God is similar to you. Angry, rigid, eager for revenge … Whereas I say: instead of believing that the worst in humans can be found in God, believe that the best in God can be found in humans."
"What you call haram is to me pure halal. You say I have to shut my mouth, but how can I keep silent when God speaks through me?"
"You are more of a fool than I thought. Tell me, have you ever been in a war?"
"I wish we could exchange places, just for a while."
"Sometimes, for the soul to thrive, the heart needs to be broken."
"In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together."
"We are not destroying the buildings, son. We are destroying our desire to possess them. Only God is the owner. Of the stone and of the skill."
"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy."
"The loneliness that came with being different."
"Death settled over Istanbul like a fog that wouldn’t lift, seeping through every hole and crack."
"For He had a peevish disposition, the God of the early days of the plague."
"Istanbul was bartering with God – offering habits, offering sacrificial lambs, offering prayers, losing, losing."
"Grief was an indulgence only a few could afford."
"Fear turned into resentment; resentment into rage. And rage was a ball of flame you could not hold in your hands for too long; it had to be thrown at someone."
"The gravediggers made each new pit deeper and wider than the previous one, at times burying bodies by the dozen."
"The same week Jahan received another nasty letter, this one clearly signed by Captain Gareth."
"Resentment is a cage, talent is a captured bird. Break the cage, let the bird take off and soar high."
"Everywhere he turned, Jahan saw a flurry of activity."
"In a fleeting world, where everything was here today and gone tomorrow, the endowment for the beloved Prince would be of solid marble, solid stone."
"He who has a library has a thousand teachers."
"Our job is to expand our knowledge. That's why we're here."
"Architecture is a conversation with God. And nowhere does He speak more loudly than at the centre."
"Every artisan and artist enters into a covenant with the divine. Have you made yours?"
"God created us because He wanted to be known."
"The dome had blended with the firmament above."
"For the eye that could see, architecture was everywhere."
"You seem like a kind soul but your mind is confused. You are like a boat with two oarsmen rowing in separate directions. That means you have not found the centre of your heart yet."
"When you master a language, you are given the key to a castle. What you’ll find inside depends on you."
"If you aim to excel in your craft, you ought to study the works of others."
"You build with wood, stone, iron. You also build with absence."
"Don’t be one of those wretched souls who live without blame or without praise."
"Every good craftsman is your teacher, no matter where he may be from. Artists and artisans are people of the same faith."
"Come back with new designs. Do a better job, if you want me to take you seriously."
"At no stage did he confess to himself that he wanted the mosque to remind Mihrimah of the day they had met."
"Although you are not fully ready, I believe you have the strength and the grit."
"Whatever life had been like for him until then, it would never be the same afterwards."
"For some time now the ancient aqueducts had been in need of repair. Lined up like defeated giants, they loomed over the city, aged and drained."
"He reminded Jahan of a turtle that, upon being prodded by children, retreats into its shell, waiting for the madness to pass."
"I’m also an apprentice to Master Sinan. It’s on this matter that I came to plead to your Highness."
"He might even be accepted into the guild, who knew."
"Not even once had the master returned slander with slander."
"Sinan said, ‘There are ways to cut expenses. Where we can, we’ll choose the shortest route and use suitable materials.’"
"The thought of one of these creatures entering his ear or chewing up his nose was so terrifying he slept in fits and starts."
"If all of Sinan’s apprentices are as devoted as you, he’s a fortunate man."
"Of such unbidden vanities are perhaps spun life’s gravest delusions."
"In the Fortress of Seven Towers, if hope was a scarcity, shit was a superfluity."
"Time became a winding staircase that reached nowhere."
"Loneliness, he could cope with; desertion he could not."
"Resentment and rage infested his soul, multiplying faster than the lice crawling on his head."
"Everything was as he had left it. At the same time nothing was the same."
"Fate was odd. The day before he was drawing designs on the floor with shit. Now he was perched on silk cushions, eating caviar from the hand of his beloved."
"God gave us a mind and told us to use it well."
"Death had found them in an hour of honest, hard work."
"Man is made in the image of God. At its center, there's order, balance."
"Pray for them all. There's no difference anymore."
"In the end there was no difference between the soldier inside and the soldier outside the enemy stronghold, the Christian and the Muslim."
"If the Janissaries see the Sultan from afar, that'll be enough. They don't need to hear his voice."
"It's essential that we hide the truth from the army."
"The world needs to empty its bowels. Let them make merry, my Vizier."
"Every noise that had been suppressed during the reign of Suleiman was now set free, eddying round the corridors."
"If princes could be killed so easily, and without any remorse or recriminations, whom could he trust in this world?"
"If you carry a sword, you obey the sword, not the other way round. Nobody can hold a weapon and keep their hands clear of blood at the same time."