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The past is always an invented land.

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
Past
Always
Invented
Land

More quotes by Orhan Pamuk

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Turkish football serves the cause of nationalism, but not of the nation.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.
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The image that I remember most of all is of the Fenerbahçe players storming into the stadium before kickoff. They were called the canaries because of their yellow jerseys. It was as if they, like canaries, were fluttering into the stadium out of a hole. I loved it. It was poetry.
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My childhood proved to me that there could be no enjoyment of football without community. But it becomes difficult when this community is having problems with its identity. That's when we experience all possible forms of nationalist exaggeration.
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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.
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East and West are coming together. Whether in peace or anarchy - they are coming together. There needn't be a clash between East and West, between Islam and Europe.
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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.
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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.
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All great masters, in their work, seek that profound void within color and outside time.
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Painting taught literature to describe.
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Now everyone is prouder and poorer
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I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.
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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.
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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.
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I was at the end of my tether when my first book was published. For eight years I didn't make a penny, I worked so hard, didn't drink, didn't enjoy life.
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Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.
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