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" I think novelists should be disciplined and self-imposed working hours. I work a lot, but I don't feel that I'm working. I always feel that there is a child in me, healthy, and I'm playing. "
Orhan Pamuk
Healthy
Child
Feel
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" The habit of collecting, of attachment to things, is an essential human trait. But Western civilization put collecting on a pedestal by inventing museums. Museums are about representing power. It could be the king's power or, later, people's power. "
Orhan Pamuk
Habit
Civilization
People
" When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end. "
Orhan Pamuk
World
End
Happy
" Good fiction is about asserting the beauties of the world, inventing a new, positive thing. Where am I going to get that? And it should be original; it should not be cliched. So the way I looked at history was not to accuse it of failure. "
Orhan Pamuk
Failure
Positive
History
" I came across humanity in Istanbul, and all I know about life comes from Istanbul, and definitely, I am writing about Istanbul. I also love the city because I live there, it has formed me, and it's me. Of course it is natural. If somebody lived all his life in Delhi, he will write about Delhi. "
Orhan Pamuk
Writing
Life
I Am
" If a writer is to tell his own story - tell it slowly, and as if it were a story about other people - if he is to feel the power of the story rise up inside him, if he is to sit down at a table and patiently give himself over to this art - this craft - he must first have been given some hope. "
Orhan Pamuk
Art
Hope
People
" I believe in a world where there are no heroes, and I've read and know humanity a lot. There are moments that I admire in a person courage, intellect, hard work. These are the qualities I admire in an intellectual, in a writer, and there are so many people who have these things. "
Orhan Pamuk
Courage
Hard Work
People
" I don't like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels... I keep my deep, radical things for my novels. "
Orhan Pamuk
Write
Want
Things
" We should not judge Islam by terrorists. All civilizations and cultures produce terrorists. Every time there is a flag-burning, killing, or provocative films, I'm worried, not because something radical will happen, and this time, some people are killed. We're very sorry for that. "
Orhan Pamuk
Judge
People
Some People
" People look at me as sort of a diplomat for Turkey, which by nature, I'm not; I don't want to be. It's again about that playfulness. Being Turkey's voice or representative is not playful, it's not childlike; it makes me self-conscious, kills the child in me. "
Orhan Pamuk
Me
Look
Nature
" Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility. "
Orhan Pamuk
Someone
Fiction
You
" At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with. "
Orhan Pamuk
Publishing
You
First
" Generally, I get bad reviews in Turkey. "
Orhan Pamuk
Bad
Reviews
Turkey
" Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture. "
Orhan Pamuk
Class
Culture
Place
" I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city. "
Orhan Pamuk
Certain
Want
People
" Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile. "
Orhan Pamuk
Smile
Prove
Respect
" When I paint, I definitely live in the present, like someone in a shower whistling or singing. "
Orhan Pamuk
Live
Someone
Singing
" Self-hatred is OK. I have self-hatred, too. It's OK. What's bad is if you don't know how to get out of it, don't know how to manage it. Self-hatred is, in fact, a good thing if you can clearly see the mechanism of it, because it helps you to understand others. "
Orhan Pamuk
Know
Understand
See
" The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' 'The Magic Mountain.' Just as with 'Shahnameh,' I browse these books from time to time to remember how a great book works on us or to teach my students at Columbia University. "
Orhan Pamuk
Great
Time
Book
" I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. "
Orhan Pamuk
Love
Life
Work
" I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west. "
Orhan Pamuk
West
Done
Really
" From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me he could pass for my twin, even my double. "
Orhan Pamuk
Me
World
Age
" Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in that sense, I like the first-person singular because I have to imitate accurately the voice of someone who is not like me. The third-person singular gives me an authority over a character. "
Orhan Pamuk
Political
People
Voice
" Museums are western inventions where the rich and the powerful or the government and the state tend to exhibit the signs and symbol and images of their culture. "
Orhan Pamuk
Culture
Powerful
Rich
" 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 Pamuk
Political
People
Poverty
" I have been attacked in Turkey more for my interviews than for my books. Political polemicists and columnists do not read novels there. "
Orhan Pamuk
Books
Political
More
" 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
Belong
Want
Hero
" I consider myself Istanbul's storyteller. My subject matter is my town. I consider it my job to explore the hidden patterns of my city's clandestine corners, its shady, mysterious places, the things I love. "
Orhan Pamuk
Myself
Hidden
Love
" The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation. "
Orhan Pamuk
Tried
Imitation
Poor
" First, I would find an object which I would think is suitable for my characters and stories, then write about it, and in the end, I ended up with a house full of thousands of objects. "
Orhan Pamuk
Stories
End
First
" The writer's secret is not inspiration - for it is never clear where it comes from - it is his stubbornness, his patience. "
Orhan Pamuk
Never
Patience
Secret