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I Think A Lot About The Poems I Wasn't Able To Write...i Masturbrated...solitude Is Essentially A Matter Of Pride; You Bury Yourself In Your Own Scent. The Issue Is The Same For All Real Poets. If You've Been Happy For Too Long, You Become Banal. By The Same Token, If You've Been Unhappy For A Long Time, You Lose Your Poetic Power...happiness And Poverty Can Only Coexist For The Briefest Time. Afterword Either Happiness Coarsens The Poet Or The Poem Is So True It Destroys His Happiness.

-Orhan Pamuk

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I Think A Lot

Orhan Pamuk

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I Think A Lot About The Poems I Wasn't Able To Write...i Masturbrated...solitude Is Essentially A Matter Of Pride; You Bury Yourself In Your Own Scent. The Issue Is The Same For All Real Poets. If You've Been Happy For Too Long, You Become Banal. By The Same Token, If You've Been Unhappy For A Long Time, You Lose Your Poetic Power...happiness And Poverty Can Only Coexist For The Briefest Time. Afterword Either Happiness Coarsens The Poet Or The Poem Is So True It Destroys His Happiness.

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To Read A Novel Is To Wonder Constantly, Even At Moments When We Lose Ourselves Most Deeply In The Book: How Much Of This Is Fantasy, And How Much Is Real?

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Being Different

Life Is Short, And We Should Respect Every Moment Of It.

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As Soon As I Observed Myself From Outside Myself, I Recognized And Understood That I Had A Long-standing Habit Of Keeping An Eye On Myself. That's How I Managed To Pull Myself Together, Over The Years, Checking Myself From The Outside.

I Am Nothing But A Corpse Now, A Body At The Bottom Of A Well.

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As Always After Drinking Too Much, I Felt Like My Own Ghost Trying To Take It's First Solo Walk Outside The Body.

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Many Great Authors Of The 19th Century Wrote Under Conditions Of Strict Censorship. The Great Thing About The Art Of Writing A Novel, Is That You Can Write About Anything. All You Have To Say Is That It's Fiction.

Love Is A Sacred Silence.

Ka Thought It Strangely Depressing That The Suicide Girls Had Had To Struggle To Find A Private Moment To Kill Themselves. Even After Swallowing Their Pills, Even As They Lay Quietly Dying, They’d Had To Share Their Rooms With Others.

Immersing Oneself In The Problems Of A Book Is A Good Way To Keep From Thinking Of Love.

No One Drives Me Into Exile, Not Even The Nationalists.

Happiness Is Laughing Together.

Laughing Together

The Real Question Is How Much Suffering We've Caused Our Womenfolk By Turning Headscarves Into Symbols - And Using Women As Pawns In A Political Game.

I Want To Describe The Psychological State Of The People In A Certain City.

Books, Which We Mistake For Consolation, Only Add Depth To Our Sorrow.

Life Can't Be All That Bad,' I'd Think From Time To Time. 'whatever Happens, I Can Always Take A Long Walk Along The Bosphorus.

[n]othing Is As Surprising As Life. Except For Writing. Except For Writing. Yes, Of Course, Except For Writing, The Only Consolation.

The Knowledge That She Could Learn To Love A Man Had Always Meant More To Her Than Loving Him Effortlessly, More Even Than Falling In Love, And That Was Why She Now Felt That She Was On The Threshold Of A New Life, A Happiness Bound To Endure For A Very Long Time.

Falling In Love

Ka Knew Very Well That Life Was A Meaningless String Of Random Incidents

Censorship Should Never Be Allowed. One Should Be Able To Say Anything. But I Refuse To Let Politics Be Foisted On Me.

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Happiness Is Holding Someone In Your Arms And Knowing You Hold The Whole World.

I Very Much Enjoy Reading Other Writers' Diaries, Mainly Because It Makes Me Ask Myself: Are They Like You? How Do They Think?

Let Me First State Forthright That Contrary To What We've Often Read In Books And Heard From Preachers, When You Are A Woman, You Don't Feel Like The Devil.

Ka Found It Very Soothing: For The First Time In Years, He Felt Part Of A Family. In Spite Of The Trials And Responsibilities Of What Was Called 'family', He Saw Now The Joys Of Its Unyielding Togetherness, And Was Sorry Not To Have Known More Of It In His Life.

Nothing Changed In My Life Since I Work All The Time," Pamuk Said Then. "i've Spent 30 Years Writing Fiction. For The First 10 Years I Worried About Money And No One Asked Me How Much Money I Made. The Second Decade I Spent Money And No One Was Asking Me About That. And I've Spent The Last 10 Years With Everyone Expecting To Hear How I Spend The Money, Which I Will Not Do.

Actually, It's The Other Way Round. In A Poor Country, The Only Consolation People Can Have Is The One That Comes From Their Beliefs.

I Sometimes Joke That I Am The First Writer Of Historical Fiction Who Can Look Out His Window And Point To The Objects In His Novels. I Have A View Of The Entrance To The Bosporus, The Old City, Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque.

When We Lose People We Love, We Should Never Disturb Their Souls, Whether Living Or Dead. Instead. We Should Find Consolation In An Object That Reminds You Of Them, Something...i Don't Know...even An Earring

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Western Culture

I Need The Pain Of Loneliness To Make My Imagination Work.

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Tell Me Then, Does Love Make One A Fool Or Do Only Fools Fall In Love?

Falling In Love

Are You An Angel That Approaching You Should Be So Terrifying?

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After All, A Woman Who Doesn't Love Cats Is Never Going To Be Make A Man Happy.

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The Gap Between Compassion And Surrender Is Love’s Darkest, Deepest Region.

Hüzün Does Not Just Paralyze The Inhabitants Of Instanbul, It Also Gives Them Poetic License To Be Paralyzed.

When You Look Into The Faces Of These Quiet Creatures Who Don't Know How To Tell Stories--who Are Mute, Who Can't Make Themselves Heard, Who Fade Into The Woodwork, Who Only Think Of The Perfect Answer After The Fact, After They're Back At Home, Who Can Never Think Of A Story That Anyone Else Will Find Interesting--is There Not More Depth And More Meaning In Them? You Can See Every Letter Of Every Untold Story Swimming On Their Faces, And All The Signs Of Silence, Dejection, And Even Defeat. You Can Even Imagine Your Own Face In Those Faces, Can't You?

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 Wildes Books In A Bookshop Makes Me Smile.

Snow Reminds Ka Of God! But I’m Not Sure It Would Be Accurate. What Brings Me Close To God Is The Silence Of Snow.

Football Can Teach Us That Although A Team's Individual Players May Be Weak, It Can Still Be Successful If It Uses Common Sense. Or That We Should Not Attack Anyone Physically When We Suffer A Depressing Defeat.

Real Museums Are Places Where Time Is Transformed Into Space.

Over Time, I Have Come To See The Work Of Literature Less As Narrating The World Than "seeing The World With Words." From The Moment He Begins To Use Words Like Colors In A Painting, A Writer Can Begin To See How Wondrous And Surprising The World Is, And He Breaks The Bones Of Language To Find His Own Voice. For This He Needs Paper, A Pen, And The Optimism Of A Child Looking At The World For The First Time.

The First Thing I Learned At School Was That Some People Are Idiots; The Second Thing I Learned Was That Some Are Even Worse.

What Is The Thing You Want Most From Me? What Can I Do To Make You Love Me?' Be Yourself,' Said Ipek.

I Do Not Believe In A Personal Connection To God; That's Where It Gets Transcendental.

In Poetically Well Built Museums, Formed From The Heart's Compulsions, We Are Consoled Not By Finding In Them Old Objects That We Love, But By Losing All Sense Of Time.

I Work Seven Days A Week, From 9 In The Morning Till 8 At Night. I Have The Titles Of The Next Eight Novels I Want To Write. I Feel Myself Pitiable, Degraded On A Day That I Don't Write.

I Think It's Horrible That We Turks Are Always Seen Under The Aspect Of Islam First. I Am Constantly Asked About Religion, And Almost Always With A Negative Undercurrent That Makes Me Furious.

I Certainly See Myself More As A Craftsman Than As An Artist.

The Real Choice We Have To Make Is Between Peace And Nationalism.

My Unhappiness Protects Me From Life.

It's Very Gratifying To Me To See My Works Bringing People Closer To My Country.

With The Death Of My Father, It Wasn't Just The Objects Of Everyday Life That Had Changed; Even The Most Ordinary Street Scenes Had Become Irreplaceable Mementos Of A Lost World Whose Every Detail Figured In The Meaning Of The Whole.

My Hero Wants To Belong Too, But He Doesn't Want To Give Up All The Things He Came To Value In The West.

We're Not Stupid! We're Just Poor! And We Have A Right To Insist On This Distinction

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.

Heaven Was The Place Where You Kept Alive The Dreams Of Your Memories.

It Is Not My Intention To Explain Turkey, Its Culture And Its Problems. My Literature Has A Universal Concern: I Want To Bring People And Their Emotions Closer To My Readers, Not Explain Turkish Politics.

Turkish Football Serves The Cause Of Nationalism, But Not Of The Nation.

My Religion Is Complicated. Literature Is My True Religion. After All, I Come From A Completely Non-religious Family.

For If A Lover's Face Survives Emblazoned On Your Heart, The World Is Still Your Home.

...the Endless Repetition Of An Ordinary Miracle.

I Am A Highly Disciplined Person. I Get Up At Seven Every Morning And, Still In My Pajamas, Sit Down At My Desk Where My Checkered Ring Binders And My Fountain Pen Are Ready For Use. I Try To Write Two Pages Every Day.

My Decision To View The World Through Novels, As It Were, Which Is A Typically European Way Of Looking At Things, Became A Heavy Burden For Me. But I Took It On Consciously, Even Though It Was Torture For Me.

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.

Great Changes In The Direction Of Peace Have Often Come From People Who Were No Great Advocates Of Peace To Begin With.

When You Love A City And Have Explored It Frequently On Foot, Your Body, Not To Mention Your Soul, Gets To Know The Streets So Well After A Number Of Years That In A Fit Of Melancholy, Perhaps Stirred By A Light Snow Falling Ever So Sorrowfully, You'll Discover Your Legs Carrying You Of Their Own Accord Toward One Of Your Favourite Promontories

Istanbul Is Certainly In The Process Of Transforming Itself Into An Attractive Cultural, Tourist And Financial Center. But There Are Also Millions Of Sad Stories In This Giant Sea Of Immigration, Poverty, Misery And Contradictions. So Much Anger, Frustration And Fury.

The Thing That Binds Us Together Is That We Have Both Lowered Our Expectations Of Life

When Another Writer In Another House Is Not Free, No Writer Is Free.

Freedom Of Speech

How Much Can We Ever Know About The Love And Pain In Another's Heart? How Much Can We Hope To Understand Those Who Have Suffered Deeper Anguish, Greater Deprivation, And More Crushing Disappointments Than We Ourselves Have Known? Even If The World's Rich And Powerful Were To Put Themselves In The Shoes Of The Rest, How Much Would They Really Understand The Wretched Millions Suffering Around Them? So It Is When Orhan The Novelist Peers Into The Dark Corners Of His Poet Friend's Difficult And Painful Life: How Much Can He Really See?

How Much Can We Ever Know About The Love And Pain In Another Heart? How Much Can We Hope To Understand Those Who Have Suffered Deeper Anguish, Greater Deprivation, And More Crushing Disappointments Than We Ourselves Have Known?

I Think A Lot About The Poems I Wasn't Able To Write...i Masturbrated...solitude Is Essentially A Matter Of Pride; You Bury Yourself In Your Own Scent. The Issue Is The Same For All Real Poets. If You've Been Happy For Too Long, You Become Banal. By The Same Token, If You've Been Unhappy For A Long Time, You Lose Your Poetic Power...happiness And Poverty Can Only Coexist For The Briefest Time. Afterword Either Happiness Coarsens The Poet Or The Poem Is So True It Destroys His Happiness.

Nationalism Stems From Catastrophes, Whether They Are Caused By Earthquakes Or Lost Wars.

A Writer In Someone Who Spends Years Patiently Trying To Discover The Second Being Inside Him, And The World That Makes Him Who He Is.

In His Brilliant New Book Pankaj Mishra Reverses The Long Gaze Of The West Upon The East, Showing Modern History As It Has Been Felt By The Majority Of The World's Population From Turkey To China. These Are The Amazing Stories Of The Grandfathers Of Today's Angry Asians. Excellent!

Yet Does Illustrating In A New Way Signify A New Way Of Seeing?

We Live But For A Short Time, We See But Very Little, And We Know Almost Nothing; So, At Least, Let's Do Some Dreaming. Have Yourself A Very Good Sunday, My Dear Readers.

Before My Birth There Was Infinite Time, And After My Death, Inexhaustible Time. I Never Thought Of It Before: I'd Been Living Luminously Between Two Eternities Of Darkness.

There's A Lot Of Pride Involved In My Refusal To Believe In God.

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William Lyon Phelps

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