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.
She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the innocence and curiosity of youth, contrasting with the skepticism often developed through life experiences.
Orhan Pamuk's quote captures the essence of youthful wonder and the purity of perception that often diminishes with age and experience. It highlights how children approach the world with an open heart and a sense of discovery, free from the burdens and scars that life may impose on us. This perspective is essential to appreciate the beauty and possibilities life offers, reminding adults to retain a sense of curiosity and openness despite life's challenges.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about embracing change and learning, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of maintaining a childlike curiosity.
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.
Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.
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.
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
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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Progress depends on our brain. The most important part of our brain, that which is neocortical, must be used to help others and not just to make discoveries.
Afflictive emotions - our jealousy, anger, hatred, fear - can be put to an end. When you realize that these emotions are only temporary, that they always pass on like clouds in the sky, you also realize they can ultimately be abandoned.
Wealth and rank are what men desire, but unless they be obtained in the right way they may not be possessed. Poverty and obscurity are what men detest; but unless prosperity be brought about in the right way, they are not to be abandoned.
It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him.
Over the years, I've evolved a somewhat heretical but time-and mind-saving approach to books, articles, editorials that deal with weighty matters. More often than not, by beginning at the end and contemplating the conclusions, one can determine if it's worth going through the whole to get there.
The trick to my writing, it turned out, was doing so exclusively in bed. The minute I even dared to discipline myself and write at the desk, I produced mounds of nonsense. Yet, sitting in bed, I wrote easily, effortlessly, fluidly. I became the master of perfect indiscipline.