Quote collection
177 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words." From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time."
"I certainly see myself more as a craftsman than as an artist."
"Painting taught literature to describe."
"Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life."
"My religion is complicated. Literature is my true religion. After all, I come from a completely non-religious family."
"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"
"Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we're being heroic, it usually means we're about to kill each other--or kill ourselves."
"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 I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do."
"I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city."
"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."
"There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well."
"I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west."
"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."
"How different from the cosy world of Rüya's detective novels, where authors never vexed a hero with more signs than he needed."
"Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love."
"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."
"The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another. -- Snow pg 119"
"I work seven days a week, from 9 in the morning till 8 at night. I have the titles of the next eight novels I want to write. I feel myself pitiable, degraded on a day that I don't write."
"Age had not made him less handsome, as is so often the case; it had simply made him less visible."
"I don't read newspapers in the morning. I take a look at the dailies in the afternoon, but only when I've finished my work for the day. Reading about what is happening in Turkey once again would only be demoralizing for me."