People look at me as sort of a diplomat for Turkey, which by nature, I’m not; I don’t want to be. It’s again about that playfulness. Being Turkey’s voice or representative is not playful, it’s not childlike; it makes me self-conscious, kills the child in me. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
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 Read Quote
When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
I strongly believe that the art of the novel works best when the writer identifies with whoever he or she is writing about. Novels in the end are based on the human capacity, compassion, and I can show more compassion to my characters if I write in a first person singular. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
When I paint, I definitely live in the present, like someone in a shower whistling or singing. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
Museums are western inventions where the rich and the powerful or the government and the state tend to exhibit the signs and symbol and images of their culture. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
When I write, I feel that I’m writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it’s some other force making me paint. I – as I wrote in my novel ‘My Name is Red’ – watch with amazement what my hand is doing on the paper, what kind of line, what kind of strange, beautiful thing it’s doing in spite of my will, so to speak. Orhan Pamuk Read Quote
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 Read Quote
