Clergyman's

The poet should be responsible to the poem.
- Ataol Behramoğlu

Is the truth of tablecloths to be spread? How awful always to take refuge in known words
A person should let himself go.
- Ataol Behramoğlu

I do not remember any other term when the force that had captured the political power in this country had become so vulgar as it is today, so corrupt, and so hypocritical; when the legal system had been so downtrodden, deteriorated, collapsed and turned into a means of cruelty.
- Ataol Behramoğlu

Distant lands should draw you, people you don't know
To read every book, know other's lives, you should be burning
You shouldn't exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water
No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning
- Ataol Behramoğlu

I want to write poetry, I'm bored, disgusted by my habits
If I stop thinking and put my hands down perhaps I will have much to say
I'm scurrying to the attic like a solitary bug
Before you become old and ugly, I must kiss you on the nose
- Ataol Behramoğlu

Death, one experiences alone
Love is a two-person thing
- Ataol Behramoğlu

I'd make me into a brand new sailor if I were God
Maybe there were new things over there
It comes from within me to write as though rabid, I'm hungry, do you understand
Let the doctors call it what they will
Who can know anything best of all
What does it mean to know anything best
Which religion doesn't grow old
- Ataol Behramoğlu

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience one thing with all your power
Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower
- Ataol Behramoğlu