Orhan Pamuk Quotes

157 quotes in 2086 categories

• The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver.
• If the Americans would only take all the money they have spent on this war (Iraq), and spend it like Soros has done on civil…
• Actually, it's the other way round. In a poor country, the only consolation people can have is the one that comes from their beliefs.
• Snow reminds Ka of God! But I’m not sure it would be accurate. What brings me close to God is the silence of snow.
• To savour Istanbul's back streets, to appreciate the vines and trees that endow its ruins with accidental grace, you must, first and foremost, be a…
• Mankind's greatest error, the biggest deception of the past thousand years is this: to confuse poverty with stupidity.
• To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is…
• Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.
• Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?
• I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city.
• My hero wants to belong too, but he doesn't want to give up all the things he came to value in the west.
• I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.
• The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying…
• There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.
• 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.
• Well, on the one hand the Turks have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity - and this includes being recognized as a part…
• Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time," Pamuk said then. "I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years…
• In the mornings I used to say goodbye to my wife like someone going to work. I'd leave the house, walk around a few blocks,…
• As soon as I observed myself from outside myself, I recognized and understood that I had a long-standing habit of keeping an eye on myself.…
• All great masters, in their work, seek that profound void within color and outside time.

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