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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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Orhan Pamuk
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 7
Academic
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
İstanbul
Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk
Write
Turk
Writing
Turkish
Things
Translated
Turkeys
Turkey
Languages
Proud
Language
Politicize

More quotes by Orhan Pamuk

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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.
Orhan Pamuk
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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
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I'm a relatively disciplined writer who composes the whole book before beginning to execute and write it. Of course, you can't hold - you cannot imagine a whole novel before you write it there are limits to human memory and imagination. Lots of things come to your mind as you write a book, but again, I make a plan, chapter, know the plot.
Orhan Pamuk
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Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head.
Orhan Pamuk
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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.
Orhan Pamuk
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When another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free.
Orhan Pamuk
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Now everyone is prouder and poorer
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
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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
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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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The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing they could control it with the power of the army alone.
Orhan Pamuk
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After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.
Orhan Pamuk
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Happiness is laughing together.
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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What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.
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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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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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
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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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Enjoyment of football is part of the social context, and I have lost my faith in this social context.
Orhan Pamuk