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...a nation could change its way of life, its history, its technology, its art, literature, and culture, but it would never have a real chance to change its gestures.

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
Real
Technology
Way
Literature
Never
Nations
Would
Chance
Life
History
Culture
Art
Gestures
Change
Nation

More quotes by Orhan Pamuk

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Colour is the touch of the eye, Music to the deaf, A word out of darkness.
Orhan Pamuk
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In fact, my entire childhood consisted of looking at photographs in which the viewer sees the ball behind the line, looking through the goal net, and the poor goalkeeper in front of the net.
Orhan Pamuk
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Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.
Orhan Pamuk
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It's a great relief for me that no one will ask me anymore: Orhan, when will you get the Nobel Prize?
Orhan Pamuk
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Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.
Orhan Pamuk
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Of course in Turkey I'm seen as being on the 'Western' side, criticised by the nationalists, criticised by the communitarians as not belonging. Even, sometimes, criticised for looking at my country through Western eyes. And in the Western media I'm portrayed as belonging to the East.
Orhan Pamuk
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Writing my own diary is the best form of remembrance, but only for my own use. I need these notes it's like an impulse.
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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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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Mankind's greatest error, the biggest deception of the past thousand years is this: to confuse poverty with stupidity.
Orhan Pamuk
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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.
Orhan Pamuk
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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.
Orhan Pamuk
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The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver.
Orhan Pamuk
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My religion is complicated. Literature is my true religion. After all, I come from a completely non-religious family.
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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What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.
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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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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Happiness is laughing together.
Orhan Pamuk
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Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.
Orhan Pamuk