Orhan Pamuk Quotes & Sayings

It's very gratifying to me to see my works bringing people closer to my country. — Orhan Pamuk

If you think you are better than Stork, then by all means, get hold of me. — Orhan Pamuk

All the happiness and beauty that life had to offer only revealed themselves when his mind drifted off into fantasies of a world far removed from his own. — Orhan Pamuk

When a good poet is confronted with difficult facts that he knows to be true but also are inimical to poetry, he has no choice but to flee to the margins; it was ... this very retreat that allowed him to hear the hidden music that is the source of all art. — 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

Love is the urgency to hold fast to another and to be together in the same place. It's the desire to keep the world out by embracing another. It is the yearning to find a safe harbor for the human soul. — Orhan Pamuk

Now suddenly he had intimations of destiny; he could see that life had a secret geometry on which his rational mind had no purchase. But even as he was overcome with a desire to subdue his reason and find happiness, he also sensed that - for the moment at least - his yearning for happiness was not yet strong enough. — Orhan Pamuk

Life is short, and we should respect every moment of it. — Orhan Pamuk

I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write ... I masturbrated ... Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power ... Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness. — Orhan Pamuk

The entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room. — Orhan Pamuk

Censorship should never be allowed. One should be able to say anything. But I refuse to let politics be foisted on me. — Orhan Pamuk

My fear, which I shared with everyone in the Turkish secular bourgeoisie, was not of God but of the fury of those who believed in Her too much. — Orhan Pamuk

One side of me is very busy paying attention to the details of life, the humanity of people, catching the street voices, the middle-class, upper-middle-class secret lives of Turks. The other side is interested in history and class and gender, trying to get all of society in a very realistic way. — 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

A writer in someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. — Orhan Pamuk

Am sometimes hard-pressed to explain why I've stayed, not only in the same place but in the same building. — Orhan Pamuk

A museum should not just be a place for fancy paintings but should be a place where we can communicate our lives through our everyday objects. — Orhan Pamuk

Ka found it very soothing: for the first time in years, he felt part of a family. In spite of the trials and responsibilities of what was called 'family', he saw now the joys of its unyielding togetherness, and was sorry not to have known more of it in his life. — Orhan Pamuk

Every person has a star, every star has a friend, and for every person carrying a star there is someone else who reflects it, and everyone carries this reflection like a secret confidante in the heart. — Orhan Pamuk

I wrote 'My Name is Red' just to remember painting, where the hand does it before the intellect. When I'm captive to it, I'm a happier person. Kierkegaard tells us that a happy person is someone who lives in the present; the unhappy person, someone who lives either in the past or the future. — Orhan Pamuk

When two people love each other as we do, no one can come between them, no one," I said, amazed at the words I was uttering without preparation. "Lovers like us, because they know that nothing can destroy their love, even on the worst days, even when they are heedlessly hurting each other in the cruelest , most deceitful ways, still carry in their hearts a consolation that never abandons them." (p.191) — Orhan Pamuk

If a writer is to tell his own story - tell it slowly, and as if it were a story about other people - if he is to feel the power of the story rise up inside him, if he is to sit down at a table and patiently give himself over to this art - this craft - he must first have been given some hope. — Orhan Pamuk

ALIF: Painting brings to life what the mind sees, as a feast for the eyes.
LAM: What the eye sees in the world enters the painting to the degree that it serves the mind.
MIM: Consequently, beauty is the eye discovering in our own world what the mind already knows. — Orhan Pamuk

Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy. — Orhan Pamuk

For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home. — Orhan Pamuk

Without patience and the skill of a craftsman, even the greatest talent is wasted. — Orhan Pamuk

The knowledge that she could learn to love a man had always meant more to her than loving him effortlessly, more even than falling in love, and that was why she now felt that she was on the threshold of a new life, a happiness bound to endure for a very long time. — Orhan Pamuk

First, I would find an object which I would think is suitable for my characters and stories, then write about it, and in the end, I ended up with a house full of thousands of objects. — Orhan Pamuk

In our household doubts more troubling than these were suffered in silence. The spiritual void I have seen in so many of Istanbul's rich, Westernised, secularist families is evident in these silences. Everyone talks openly about mathematics, success at school, football and having fun, but they grapple with the most basic questions of existence - love,compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred - in trembling confusion and painful solitude. They light a cigarette, give their attention to the music on the radio, return wordlessly to their inner worlds. — Orhan Pamuk

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen. — Orhan Pamuk

I consider myself a person who comes from a Muslim culture. In any case, I would not say that I'm an atheist. So I'm a Muslim who associates historical and cultural identification with this religion. — Orhan Pamuk

They, like me, like all of us, had, once upon a time, in a past so far away it seemed like heaven, caught by chance a glimpse of an inner essence, only to forget what it was. It was this lost memory that pained us, reduced us to ruins, though still we struggled to be ourselves. — Orhan Pamuk

Whenever I find myself talking of the beauty and the poetry of the Bosphorus and Istanbul's dark streets, a voice inside me warns against exaggeration, a tendency perhaps motivated by a wish not to acknowledge the lack of beauty in my own life. If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too. A — Orhan Pamuk

I'm not indignant," I said indignantly. — Orhan Pamuk

There was something pretentious about politics when it was taken to extremes. — Orhan Pamuk

The waiting was torture, the worst Ka had ever known. It was this pain, this deadly wait, he now remembered, that had made him afraid to fall in love. — Orhan Pamuk

When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories — Orhan Pamuk

Throughout history, religious leaders and other honorable men of conscience have always warned against this shaming confusion. They remind us that the poor have hearts, minds, humanity, and wisdom just like everyone else. When Hans Hansen sees a poor man he feels sorry for him. He would not necessarily assume that the man's a fool who's blown his chances or a drunk who's lost his will. — Orhan Pamuk

Enjoyment of football is part of the social context, and I have lost my faith in this social context. — Orhan Pamuk

It is not my intention to explain Turkey, its culture and its problems. My literature has a universal concern: I want to bring people and their emotions closer to my readers, not explain Turkish politics. — Orhan Pamuk

The power of things inheres in the memories they gather up inside them, and also in the vicissitudes of our imagination, and our memory
of this there is no doubt. — Orhan Pamuk

The endless repetition of an ordinary miracle. — Orhan Pamuk

I believe strongly in an author's moral responsibility. But his first obligation is to write good books. — Orhan Pamuk

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known? — Orhan Pamuk

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

Nothing makes you happy in life except love... Neither the books you write or cites you see... I am very lonely... If I say that I want to be here in this city close to you until the end of my life would you believe me? — Orhan Pamuk

Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love. — Orhan Pamuk

From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me he could pass for my twin, even my double. — Orhan Pamuk

Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness. — Orhan Pamuk

This book is concerned with fate. I — Orhan Pamuk

Only imbeciles are innocent. — Orhan Pamuk

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus. — Orhan Pamuk

Women kill themselves because they hope to gain something," said Kadife. "Men kill themselves because they've lost hope of gaining anything. — Orhan Pamuk

This, then, is how we first came across the fearsome secret history of turkey's mannequins. — Orhan Pamuk

Dreams are good for three things:
ALIF:
You want something but you just can't ask for it. So you'll say that you've dreamed about it. In this manner, you can ask for what you want without actually asking for it.
BA:
You want to harm someone. For example, you want to slander a woman. So, you'll say that such-and-such woman is committing adultery or that such-and-such pasha is pilfering wine by the jug. I dreamed it, you'll say. In this fashion, even if they don't believe you, the mere mention of the sinful deed is almost never forgotten.
DJIM:
You want something, but you don't even know what it is. So, you'll describe a confusing dream. Your friends or family will immediately interpret the dream and tell you what you need or what they can do for you. For example, they'll say: You need a husband, a child, a house ... — Orhan Pamuk

Love points the way, empties you of the stuff of life, carries you at last to the mystery of creation. — Orhan Pamuk

I'm a relatively disciplined writer who composes the whole book before beginning to execute and write it. Of course, you can't hold - you cannot imagine a whole novel before you write it; there are limits to human memory and imagination. Lots of things come to your mind as you write a book, but again, I make a plan, chapter, know the plot. — Orhan Pamuk

Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow. — Orhan Pamuk

I saw myself in the mirror, and from my expression I had a shocking intimation of the rift between my body and my soul. Whereas my face was drained by defeat and shock, inside my head was another universe: I now understood as an elemental fact of life that while I was here, inside my body was a soul, a meaning, that all things were made of desire, touch, and love, that what I was suffering was composed of the same elements. — Orhan Pamuk

They fell quiet looking at the garden. They seemed a little sad, somehow pained, but at the same time perplexed. As though they were looking at their own thoughts and not seeing what they were actually looking at, not seeing the plants of the garden, the fig trees, and the hiding places of the crickets. But what can you see in thoughts? Pain, grief, hope, curiosity, longing, all those things stay with you to the end and your mind will wear itself out if you don't put something else in there, where did I hear that, your mind will be like two millstones with no grist between them. Then: you go crazy! — Orhan Pamuk

If they spoke, it was in whispers — Orhan Pamuk

There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man
and I am in this category
can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her. — Orhan Pamuk

The greatest happiness is when the eye discovers beauty where neither then mind conceived of nor the hand intended any. — Orhan Pamuk

My mood, as I identify with each of my heroes, resembles what I used to feel when I played alone as a child. Like all children, I liked to play make-believe, to put myself in someone else's place and imagine dream worlds in which I was a soldier, a famous soccer player, or a great hero. — Orhan Pamuk

To avoid disappointment in art, one mustn't treat it as a career. — Orhan Pamuk

I very much enjoy reading other writers' diaries, mainly because it makes me ask myself: Are they like you? How do they think? — Orhan Pamuk

Turkey, with its political intolerance, as I have described it, is prepared to march forward, to break with its taboo about the Armenians, and is making great strides with respect to human rights and freedom of speech so that it can join the European Union. This alone shows how powerful the European idea is. — Orhan Pamuk

Football can teach us that although a team's individual players may be weak, it can still be successful if it uses common sense. Or that we should not attack anyone physically when we suffer a depressing defeat. — Orhan Pamuk

I need a moment of time for myself every day, like a child playing with his things. When I travel, I routinely find a quiet place, open my diary and write something in it. — Orhan Pamuk

In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so. — Orhan Pamuk

Colour is the touch of the eye,
Music to the deaf,
A word out of darkness. — Orhan Pamuk

What we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination. — Orhan Pamuk

I once left Istanbul in the purse of a preacher from Edirne who was going to Manisa. On the way, we happened to be attacked by thieves. One of them shouted, "Your money or your life!" Panicking, the miserable preacher hid us in his asshole. This spot, which he assumed was the safest, smelled worse than the mouth of the garlic lover and was much less comfortable. But the situation quickly grew worse when instead of "Your money or your life!" the thieves began to shout "Your honor or your life!" Lining up, they took him by turns. I don't dare describe the agony we suffered in that cramped hole. It's for this reason that I dislike leaving Istanbul.

(~I am a gold coin) — Orhan Pamuk

The task of writing a novel is to imagine a world
a world that first exists as a picture before it eventually takes the form of words. Only later do we express through words the picture we imagine, so that readers can share this product of the imagination. — Orhan Pamuk

There are three types of buildings in Istanbul, he used to say: (1) those full of devout families where people say their daily prayers and leave their shoes outside, (2) rich and Westernized homes where you can go in with your shoes on, (3) new high-rise blocks where you can find a mix of both sorts. — Orhan Pamuk

Not a day passes when the eagle of dark depression doesn't take flight in my soul, said Sunay, infusing his words with mysterious pride. But I cannot catch myself. So hold yourself in. All's well that ends well. — Orhan Pamuk

I have always thought that the place where you sleep or the place you share with your partner should be separate from the place where you write. The domestic rituals and details somehow kill the imagination. They kill the demon in me. — Orhan Pamuk

Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness. My imagination, however, requires that I stay in the same city, on the same street, in the same house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul's fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am. Gustave — Orhan Pamuk

My childhood proved to me that there could be no enjoyment of football without community. But it becomes difficult when this community is having problems with its identity. That's when we experience all possible forms of nationalist exaggeration. — Orhan Pamuk

I read somewhere that luck is not blind, just illiterate. Luck, I mused, is a palliative for those who don't know probability and statistics. — Orhan Pamuk

We used to be brothers and sisters here. Kurdish, did not know he was. Turkmenians, Germans, they all existed here but never were proud of it. That pride was only distributed by the powers who aimed to destroy Turkey. — Orhan Pamuk

But in my rebellious way I think that people have to be able to start over, just as I believed that a little girl has to be able to stay an innocent child her whole life long if she wants to, — Orhan Pamuk

Believing that Sibel was saying these things to me to make me angry, I got angry. But this is not to say that the fury owed nothing to my partial awareness that she was right. — Orhan Pamuk

Good fiction is about asserting the beauties of the world, inventing a new, positive thing. Where am I going to get that? And it should be original; it should not be cliched. So the way I looked at history was not to accuse it of failure. — Orhan Pamuk

As I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, it occurred to me that if all else failed, a man could at least kiss himself, and I stared in to the mirror, conjuring up the memory of the couple in the film. I couldn't get the image of their lips out of my mind. But by now I'd realised I'd not even be kissing myself; I'd be kissing the mirror. — Orhan Pamuk

More than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author's job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion. — Orhan Pamuk

If a person can live in the same house for seventy years and still be confused, then this thing that we call life, and imagine we have used up, must be such a strange and incomprehensible thing that no one can even know what their own life is. You stand there waiting and on it goes from place to place, no one knows why, and as it goes, you have many thoughts about where it's been and where it's headed; then just as you speak these strange thoughts, which aren't right or wrong, and lead to no conclusion, you look, and the journey ends here, Fatma, okay, this is where you get off! First one foot, then the other, I get out of the carriage. I take two steps, then step back and look at the carriage. — Orhan Pamuk

Age had not made him less handsome, as is so often the case; it had simply made him less visible. — Orhan Pamuk

I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries. — Orhan Pamuk

If we give what we treasure most to a Being we love with all our hearts, if we can do that without expecting anything in return, then the world becomes a beautiful place. — Orhan Pamuk

At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with. — Orhan Pamuk

I get used to my fountain pens and my clothes, and I can never throw them away. I replace them only when I see that they are broken or embarrassing to wear. — Orhan Pamuk

You'll learn it all soon enough . . . You will see everything without being seen. You will hear everything but pretend that you haven't . . . You will walk for ten hours a day but feel like you haven't walked at all. — Orhan Pamuk

Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've run out of chances for happiness — Orhan Pamuk

Turks have a dismissive phrase: he works like a clerk. I have turned this insult around: I am proud to say that I work like a clerk. — 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

I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.' — Orhan Pamuk

Painting and happiness. I would like my dear readers who have given close attention to my story and my fate to bear these two things in mind, as they are the genesis of my world. — Orhan Pamuk

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity. — Orhan Pamuk

I asked him about his enemies. He began to count them. The list went on and on ... - Conversations with Yahya Kemal — Orhan Pamuk