Quotes from Orhan Pamuk

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

Luego pensamos que un buen relato debe tener un comienzo infantil, un desarrollo terrorífico como una pesadilla y un final amargo como una historia de amor que termina en una separación.

The future of a society was not determined by the traits its members shared but rested entirely on their differences

I don't want to be a tree, I want to be its meaning.

Porque nada puede ser tan sorprendente como la vida. Excepto la escritura. Excepto la escritura. Si, por supuesto, excepto la escritura, el único consuelo

Ben bir a?ac?n kendisi de?il, manas? olmak istiyorum.

When a Westerner meets someone from a poor country, he feels deep contempt. He assumes that the poor man's head must be full of all the nonsense that plunged his country into poverty and despair.

At that moment, I wished my whole consciousness could be erased. I wanted to escape from my own awareness, to wander freely in a world outside my mind, but understanding now that I would always be two people, I realized that I'd never be able to let go.

Bunlara kaç kiÅŸi inan?yor? dedi yorgun, b?kk?n bir havayla. Biraz ilgi gören ve bundan ba?? dönen h?rsl? her vaiz, dinin elden gittiÄŸini söylemeye baÅŸlar. En saÄŸlam ekmek kap?s? budur.

Tužna projekcija života za pjesnika je primamljivija od samog života.

As?l olan hikâyedir. [...] Güzel bir resim bir hikâyeyi zarafetle tamamlar.

A great painter does not content himself by affecting us with his masterpieces; ultimately, he succeeds in changing the landscape of our minds.

Creíamos saber mucho, pero no sabíamos nada.

It's not enough to be oppressed, you must also be in the right. Most oppressed people are in the wrong to an almost ridiculous degree. What shall I believe in?

Qué extraños lectores son ustedes, qué extraño país es este.

When faced with Death, people lose control of their bodily functions—particularly the majority of those men who are known to be brave-hearted. For this reason, the corpse-strewn battlefields that you've depicted thousands of times reek not of blood, gunpowder and heated armor as is assumed, but of shit and rotting flesh.

Çok hata ettim, ona hava att?m, onunla arkadaÅŸ olamad?m," dedi Süleyman. "Ama o da çok sivri dilliydi. Kimse, k?zlarla nas?l konuÅŸulur, bu zor iÅŸin s?rr?n? bize öÄŸretmedi. Bir erkekle konuÅŸur gibi, ama hiç küfür etmeden konuÅŸuyordum. Olmad?

Sizin saç?n?z?n k?rm?z?s? doÄŸuÅŸtan, benimki ise kendi karar?m dedim hemen an?nda.

These exhibitions, and the stories behind them, should also in due course have their own catalogs and novels. As visitors admire the objects and honor the memory of Füsun and Kemal, with due reverence, they will understand that, like the tales of Leyla and Mecnun or Hüsn and AÈ™k, this is not simply a story of lovers, but of the entire realm, that is, of Istanbul.

D??ar?, d??ar?, der içimizdeki huzursuz ses, öteki insanlar?n, karanl???n, sefaletin, rezilliÄŸin içine koÅŸ.

La sabiduría de una ciudad no hay que medirla por los sabios que acoge, ni por sus bibliotecas, ni por sus ilustradores, calígrafos y medersas, sino por el número de crímenes tortuosos cometidos en sus calles oscuras a lo largo de miles de años.

In order to find meaning and readerly pleasure in the universe the writer reveals to us, we feel we must search for the novel's secret center, and we therefore try to embed every detail of the novel in our memory, as if learning each leaf of a tree by heart.

However blissful it is being a soul without a body in the realm of the dead, so too is being a body without a soul among the living; what a pity nobody realizes this before dying. Therefore, during my lovely funeral, as I grievously watched my dear Shekure wear herself out weeping in vain, I begged of Exalted Allah to grant us souls-without bodies in Heaven and bodies-without-souls in life.

What is it to be a color? Color is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness.