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 have been attacked in Turkey more for my interviews than for my books. Political polemicists and columnists do not read novels there.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Orhan Pamuk suggests that his outspoken views are more controversial than his literary works.
In this quote, Orhan Pamuk reflects on his experiences in Turkey, emphasizing that his political interviews garner more scrutiny than his novels. This indicates a cultural landscape where political discourse outweighs the appreciation for literary art, revealing a disconnect between the two realms in his home country.
Themes
TurkeyPoliticsLiteratureOrhan PamukNovelsInterviews
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary festival, one could use this quote to highlight the interplay between politics and literature.
More from Orhan Pamuk
All quotes →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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Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.
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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.
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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
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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.
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