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As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them

Orhan Pamuk

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Orhan Pamuk
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 7
Academic
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
İstanbul
Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk
Imitation
Shall
Hate
Live
Different
Much
Imitate

More quotes by Orhan Pamuk

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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
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The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver.
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Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere
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Many great authors of the 19th century wrote under conditions of strict censorship. The great thing about the art of writing a novel, is that you can write about anything. All you have to say is that it's fiction.
Orhan Pamuk
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Love is a sacred silence.
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Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?
Orhan Pamuk
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When Turkey began approaching the EU, I wasn't the only one who worried that the dark stain in Turkey's history - or rather the history of the Ottoman Empire - could become a problem one day. In other words, what happened to the Armenians in World War I. That's why I couldn't leave the issue untouched.
Orhan Pamuk
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My diary has its own kind of magic. It gives me the feeling of having accomplished something. On days when I don't have time for this, I feel tortured.
Orhan Pamuk
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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
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To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is fantasy, and how much is real?
Orhan Pamuk
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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
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The real choice we have to make is between peace and nationalism.
Orhan Pamuk
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I am proud to be a Turk, and to write in Turkish about Turkey - and to have been translated into about 40 languages. But I don't want to politicize things by dramatizing them.
Orhan Pamuk
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Age had not made him less handsome, as is so often the case it had simply made him less visible.
Orhan Pamuk
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I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.
Orhan Pamuk
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The bloody years of war and all the atrocities in European history have taught the Europeans that secular politics free of religious hatred is mainly a question of peace. This concept is not anchored in the same way in the consciousness of Turks, which has to do with the fact that the secular was forced upon us by the army.
Orhan Pamuk
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If Turkey become a member of the EU, of course Turks would lose a part of this identity, just as Europe would lose a part of its own. It would also be a different Europe then. Accepting Turkey into the EU is an ambitious political endeavor of historical proportions. Europe would become a strong, multi-religious unit.
Orhan Pamuk
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Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.
Orhan Pamuk
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When something explosive is kept hidden away, a tension builds within that must ultimately be released.
Orhan Pamuk
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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