Orhan Pamuk Quotes

78 Sourced Quotes

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. That's how I managed to pull myself together, over the years, checking myself from the outside.

Orhan Pamuk
The snow reminded me of the beauty and mystery of creation, of the essential joy that is life.

Orhan Pamuk
In actuality, we don't look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is preciously what they cannot depict. That's why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life.

Orhan Pamuk
In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people behave. If you ask me, being cultured and civilized is not about everyone being free and equal; it's about everyone being refined enough to act as if they were. Then no one has to feel guilty.

Orhan Pamuk
I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.

Orhan Pamuk
All true literature rises from this childish, hopeful certainty that all people resemble each other.

Orhan Pamuk
The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols — and using women as pawns in a political game.

Orhan Pamuk
Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.

Orhan Pamuk
In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.

Orhan Pamuk
The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver.

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

Orhan Pamuk
The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion... open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.

Orhan Pamuk
Clocks and calendars do not exist to remind us of the Time we've forgotten but to regulate our relations with others and indeed all of society, and this is how we use them.

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
Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents

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
After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.

Orhan Pamuk
We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction

Orhan Pamuk
It's such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can't find it in our hearts to love our own kind. Instead we admire those who show our country disrespect and betray its people.

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."

Orhan Pamuk
What is love? I don't know. Love is the name given to the bond Kemal feels with Füsun whenever they travel along highways or sidewalks; visit houses, gardens, or rooms; or whenever he watches her sitting in tea gardens and restaurants, and at dinner tables. Hmmm … that's a lovely answer, But isn't love what you feel when you can't see me? Under those circumstances, it becomes a terrible obsession, an illness.

Orhan Pamuk
Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that we belittle ourselves. When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the depths of our souls. The day arrives when the guilty must return to save those who could not find the courage to leave.

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
There's a lot of pride involved in my refusal to believe in god.

Orhan Pamuk
The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.

Orhan Pamuk