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 PamukRead
I realized that the longing for art, like the longing for love, is a malady that blinds us, and makes us forget the things we already know, obscuring reality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The desire for art, similar to the desire for love, can cloud our perception of reality and what we already understand.
In this quote, Orhan Pamuk reflects on the complex nature of our desires for both art and love, suggesting that such longings can overwhelm our senses and disrupt our understanding of reality. This blinding effect can lead us to forget the fundamental truths we already possess, highlighting the depth of emotional investment we place in these pursuits.
Themes
ArtLongingLoveRealityPerception
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class, when discussing the emotional impact of artworks.
More from Orhan Pamuk
All quotes βThe 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 PamukRead
Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.
Orhan PamukRead
It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other.
Orhan PamukRead
We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart
Orhan PamukRead
These political movements flourish on the margins of Turkish society because of poverty and because of the people's feeling that they are not being represented.
Orhan PamukRead
Similar quotes
It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're not there, and the next day they are there. They're alive, and they're whispering in my head and all that stuff, and I want to write about those things.
George R. R. MartinRead
The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.
Eve ArnoldRead
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Wislawa SzymborskaRead
They're the best critics. Workshops are good, and drama teachers are fine, but the best is the audience. And even better if they're paying!
George TakeiRead
Photography doesn't teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.
Berenice AbbottRead
Natural beauty is essentially temporary and sad, hence the impression of obscene mockery which artificial flowers give us.
John UpdikeRead