Orhan Pamuk quotes - page 3

The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing they could control it with the power of the army alone. (Orhan Pamuk)
We live but for a short time, we see but very little, and we know almost nothing; so, at least, let's do some dreaming. Have yourself a very good Sunday, my dear readers.
Orhan Pamuk
When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead. we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something... I don't know... even an earring.
Orhan Pamuk
I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.
Orhan Pamuk
Colour is the touch of the eye, Music to the deaf, A word out of darkness.
Orhan Pamuk
My hero wants to belong too, but he doesn't want to give up all the things he came to value in the west.
Orhan Pamuk
As always after drinking too much, I felt like my own ghost trying to take it's first solo walk outside the body.
Orhan Pamuk
I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.
Orhan Pamuk
There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.
Orhan Pamuk
In poetically well built museums, formed from the heart's compulsions, we are consoled not by finding in them old objects that we love, but by losing all sense of Time.
Orhan Pamuk
Culture is mix. Culture means a mix of things from other sources. And my town, Istanbul, was this kind of mix. Istanbul, in fact, and my work, is a testimony to the fact that East and West combine cultural gracefully, or sometimes in an anarchic way, came together, and that is what we should search for. (Orhan Pamuk)
In a city, you can be alone in a crowd, and in fact what makes the city a city is that it lets you hide the strangeness in your mind inside its teeming multitudes.
Orhan Pamuk
... love is deep attention, deep compassion...
Orhan Pamuk
Happiness means being close to the one you love, that's all. (Taking immediate possession is not necessary.)
Orhan Pamuk
My unhappiness protects me from life.
Orhan Pamuk
I consider myself Istanbul's storyteller. My subject matter is my town. I consider it my job to explore the hidden patterns of my city's clandestine corners, its shady, mysterious places, the things I love.
Orhan Pamuk
We fall in love more deeply when we're unhappy.
Orhan Pamuk
These political movements flourish on the margins of Turkish society because of poverty and because of the people's feeling that they are not being represented.
Orhan Pamuk
The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation.
Orhan Pamuk
The hero of the book does long to experience God. But his conception of God is very western.
Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture. (Orhan Pamuk)
At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.
Orhan Pamuk
When another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free.
Orhan Pamuk
The writers secret is not inspiration - for it is never clear where it comes from - it is his stubbornness, his patience.
Orhan Pamuk
I don't like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels ... I keep my deep radical things for my novels.
Orhan Pamuk