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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?

-Orhan Pamuk

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When You Look Into

Orhan Pamuk

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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?

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

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

I Think Perhaps It Is A Generational Thing. I Talk To Younger People And They Say, Where Is This Melancholy City You Talk About My Istanbul Is A Sunny Place.

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.

Suddenly Ka Realized He Was In Love With İpek. And Realizing That This Love Would Determine The Rest Of His Life, He Was Filled With Dread.

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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I Was At The End Of My Tether When My First Book Was Published. For Eight Years I Didn't Make A Penny, I Worked So Hard, Didn't Drink, Didn't Enjoy Life.

To Savour Istanbul's Back Streets, To Appreciate The Vines And Trees That Endow Its Ruins With Accidental Grace, You Must, First And Foremost, Be A Stranger To Them.

If We Give What We Treasure Most To A Being We Love With All Our Hearts, If We Can Do That Without Expecting Anything In Return, Then The World Becomes A Beautiful Place.

We Fall In Love More Deeply When Were Unhappy.

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

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.

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There's Been Quite A Clear Upswing In Nationalist Sentiments. Everyone Is Talking About It, In Turkey As Well.

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All Great Masters, In Their Work, Seek That Profound Void Within Color And Outside Time.

Listen To Me: Life Is Not About Principles; It`s About Happiness.` `but If You Don`t Have Any Principles, And If You Don`t Have Faith, You Can`t Be Happy At All,` Said Kadife. `that`s True. But In A Brutal Country Like Ours, Where Human Life Is Cheap, It`s Stupid To Destroy Yourself For The Sake Of Your Beliefs. Beliefs? High Ideas? Only People In Rich Countries Can Enjoy Such Luxuries.` `actually, It`s The Other Way Round. In A Poor Country, People`s Sole Consolation Comes From Their Beliefs.

Where There Is True Art And Genuine Virtuosity The Artist Can Paint An Incomparable Masterpiece Without Leaving Even A Trace Of His Identity.

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.

Without Patience And The Skill Of A Craftsman, Even The Greatest Talent Is Wasted.

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.

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True Literature Is More Than Just A Story Someone Has Told. It Must Provide The Reader With The Essence Of The World On A Moral, Philosophical And Emotional Level.

When Something Explosive Is Kept Hidden Away, A Tension Builds Within That Must Ultimately Be Released.

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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

Turkey, With Its Political Intolerance, As I Have Described It, Is Prepared To March Forward, To Break With Its Taboo About The Armenians, And Is Making Great Strides With Respect To Human Rights And Freedom Of Speech So That It Can Join The European Union. This Alone Shows How Powerful The European Idea Is.

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.

Heroic Dreams Are The Consolation Of The Unhappy. After All, When People Like Us Say We're Being Heroic, It Usually Means We're About To Kill Each Other--or Kill Ourselves.

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

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.

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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.

National Consciousness Is Truly A Miraculous Thing. When I Am Not In Turkey I Feel Even More Turkish Than In Istanbul. But When I'm Home My European Side Becomes More Apparent.

Let Everyone Know, I Lived A Very Happy Life.

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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.

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I Consider Myself A Person Who Comes From A Muslim Culture. In Any Case, I Would Not Say That I'm An Atheist. So I'm A Muslim Who Associates Historical And Cultural Identification With This Religion.

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?

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

Freedom Of Speech

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.

Painting Is The Silence Of Thought And The Music Of Sight.

There Are Two Kind Of Men,' Said Ka, In A Didatic Voice. 'the First Kind Does Not Fall In Love Until He's Seen How The Girls Eats A Sandwich, How She Combs Her Hair, What Sort Of Nonsense She Cares About, Why She's Angry At Her Father, And What Sort Of Stories People Tell About Her. The Second Type Of Man -- And I Am In This Category -- Can Fall In Love With A Woman Only If He Knows Next To Nothing About Her.

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

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

East And West Are Coming Together. Whether In Peace Or Anarchy - They Are Coming Together. There Needn't Be A Clash Between East And West, Between Islam And Europe.

‎the Past Is Always An Invented Land.

Turks Have A Dismissive Phrase: He Works Like A Clerk. I Have Turned This Insult Around: I Am Proud To Say That I Work Like A Clerk.

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

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

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

I Identify With My Culture, But I Am Happy To Be Living On A Tolerant, Intellectual Island Where I Can Deal With Dostoyevsky And Sartre, Both Great Influences 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.

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

...every Person Has A Star, Every Star Has A Friend, And For Every Person Carrying A Star There Is Someone Else Who Reflects It, And Everyone Carries This Reflection Like A Secret Confidante In The Heart.

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

My Diary Has Its Own Kind Of Magic. It Gives Me The Feeling Of Having Accomplished Something. On Days When I Don't Have Time For This, I Feel Tortured.

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.

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

Falling In Love

If Turkey Become A Member Of The Eu, Of Course Turks Would Lose A Part Of This Identity, Just As Europe Would Lose A Part Of Its Own. It Would Also Be A Different Europe Then. Accepting Turkey Into The Eu Is An Ambitious Political Endeavor Of Historical Proportions. Europe Would Become A Strong, Multi-religious Unit.

What Was The Difference Between Love And The Agony Of Waiting? Like Love, The Agony Of Waiting Began In The Muscles And Somewhere Around The Upper Belly But Soon Spread Out To The Chest, The Thighs, And The Forehead, To Invade The Entire Body With Numbing Force.

Painting Taught Literature To Describe.

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.

Dogs Do Speak, But Only To Those Who Know How To Listen.

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

It's A Great Relief For Me That No One Will Ask Me Anymore: "orhan, When Will You Get The Nobel Prize?"

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Time Had Not Faded My Memories (as I Had Prayed To God It Might), Nor Had It Healed My Wounds As It Is Said Always To Do. I Began Each Day With The Hope That The Next Day Would Be Better, My Recollections A Little Less Pointed, But I Would Awake To The Same Pain, As If A Black Lamp Were Burning Eternally Inside Me, Radiating Darkness.

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 Need A Moment Of Time For Myself Every Day, Like A Child Playing With His Things. When I Travel, I Routinely Find A Quiet Place, Open My Diary And Write Something In It.

Age Had Not Made Him Less Handsome, As Is So Often The Case; It Had Simply Made Him Less Visible.

Istanbul Is A Vast Place. There Are Very Conservative Neighbourhoods, There Are Places That Are Upper Class, Westernised, Consuming Western Culture.

Western Culture

In Fact, My Entire Childhood Consisted Of Looking At Photographs In Which The Viewer Sees The Ball Behind The Line, Looking Through The Goal Net, And The Poor Goalkeeper In Front Of The Net.

My Unhappiness Protects Me From Life.

I Really Don't Want To Portray The Islamists As Simply Evil, The Way It's Often Done In The West.

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 Read A Book One Day And My Whole Life Was Changed.

I Don't Want To Be A Tree; I Want To Be Its Meaning.

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

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The Snow Reminded Me Of The Beauty And Mystery Of Creation, Of The Essential Joy That Is Life.

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

I Believe Strongly In An Author's Moral Responsibility. But His First Obligation Is To Write Good Books.

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.

What Was Venerated As Style Was Nothing More Than An Imperfection Or Flaw That Revealed The Guilty Hand.

Clocks And Calendars Do Not Exist To Remind Us Of The Time We've Forgotten But To Regulate Our Relations With Others And Indeed All Of Society, And This Is How We Use Them.

For The Traveler We See Leaning On His Neighbor Is An Honest And Well-meaning Man And Full Of Melancholy, Like Those Chekhov Characters So Laden With Virtues That They Never Know Success In Life.

A Letter Doesn't Communicate By Words Alone. A Letter, Just Like A Book, Can Be Read By Smelling It, Touching It And Fondling It. Thereby, Intelligent Folk Will Say, 'go On Then, Read What The Letter Tells You!' Whereas The Dull-witted Will Say, 'go On Then, Read What He's Written!

Love Is A Sacred Silence.

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

More Than Anything I Am A Novelist. But For Me, An Author's Job Is Not Only To Create Linguistically Accomplished Works. As An Author I Also Want To Stimulate Discussion.

The Drinking Of Coffee Is An Absolute Sin! Our Glorious Prophet Did Not Partake Of Coffee Because He Knew It Dulled The Intellect, Caused Ulcers, Hernia And Sterility; He Understood That Coffee Was Nothing But The Devil's Ruse.

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

Mankind's Greatest Error, The Biggest Deception Of The Past Thousand Years Is This: To Confuse Poverty With Stupidity.

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.

Whatever Anybody Says, The Most Important Thing In Life Is To Be Happy.

Inspirational Life

How Different From The Cosy World Of Rüya's Detective Novels, Where Authors Never Vexed A Hero With More Signs Than He Needed.

It's Such A Shame That We Know So Little About Our Own Country, That We Can't Find It In Our Hearts To Love Our Own Kind. Instead We Admire Those Who Show Our Country Disrespect And Betray Its People.

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

In The Mornings I Used To Say Goodbye To My Wife Like Someone Going To Work. I'd Leave The House, Walk Around A Few Blocks, And Come Back Like A Person Arriving At The Office.

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.

Sometimes I Would See Them Not As Mementos Of The Blissful Hours But As The Tangible Precious Debris Of The Storm Raging In My Soul.

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.

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

If The Americans Would Only Take All The Money They Have Spent On This War (iraq), And Spend It Like Soros Has Done On Civil Societies In These Countries, Then In 10 Years They Would Have Wonderful Results.

The Writers Secret Is Not Inspiration - For It Is Never Clear Where It Comes From - It Is His Stubbornness, His Patience.

And Before Long , The Msuic , The Views Rushing Past The Window , My Fathers Voice And The Narrow Cobblestone Streets All Merged Into One , And It Seemed To Me That While We Would Never Find Answers To These Fundamental Questions , It Was Good For Us To Ask Them Anyway . Pg. 284

Sometimes I Sensed That The Books I Read In Rapid Succession Had Set Up Some Sort Of Murmur Among Themselves, Transforming My Head Into An Orchestra Pit Where Different Musical Instruments Sounded Out, And I Would Realize That I Could Endure This Life Because Of These Musicales Going On In My Head.

Most Of The Time It's Not The Europeans Who Belittle Us. What Happens When We Look At Them Is That We Belittle Ourselves. When We Undertake The Pilgrimage, It's Not Just To Escape The Tyranny At Home But Also To Reach To The Depths Of Our Souls. The Day Arrives When The Guilty Must Return To Save Those Who Could Not Find The Courage To Leave.

Real Museums Are Places Where Time Is Transformed Into Space.

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

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

Novels Are Political Not Because Writers Carry Party Cards -- Some Do, I Do Not -- But Because Good Fiction Is About Identifying With And Understanding People Who Are Not Necessarily Like Us. By Nature All Good Novels Are Political Because Identifying With The Other Is Political. At The Heart Of The 'art Of The Novel' Lies The Human Capacity To See The World Through Others' Eyes. Compassion Is The Greatest Strength Of The Novelist.

Life Is Beautiful If You Are On The Road To Somewhere

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.

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

Any Intelligent Person Knows That Life Is A Beautiful Thing And That The Purpose Of Life Is To Be Happy," Said My Father As He Watched The Three Beauties. "but It Seems Only Idiots Are Ever Happy. How Can We Explain This?

People Only Tell Lies When There Is Something They Are Terribly Frightened Of Losing.

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

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.

Writing My Own Diary Is The Best Form Of Remembrance, But Only For My Own Use. I Need These Notes; It's Like An Impulse.

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.

Of Course In Turkey I'm Seen As Being On The 'western' Side, Criticised By The Nationalists, Criticised By The Communitarians As Not Belonging. Even, Sometimes, Criticised For Looking At My Country Through Western Eyes. And In The Western Media I'm Portrayed As Belonging To The East.

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.

I'm A Relatively Disciplined Writer Who Composes The Whole Book Before Beginning To Execute And Write It. Of Course, You Can't Hold - You Cannot Imagine A Whole Novel Before You Write It; There Are Limits To Human Memory And Imagination. Lots Of Things Come To Your Mind As You Write A Book, But Again, I Make A Plan, Chapter, Know The Plot.

As Much As I Live I Shall Not Imitate Them Or Hate Myself For Being Different To Them

Being Different

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

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.

Enjoyment Of Football Is Part Of The Social Context, And I Have Lost My Faith In This Social Context.

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.

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.

A Writer Is Someone Who Spends Years Patiently Trying To Discover The Second Being Inside Him, And The World That Makes Him Who He Is: When I Speak Of Writing, What Comes First To My Mind Is Not A Novel, A Poem, Or Literary Tradition, It Is A Person Who Shuts Himself Up In A Room, Sits Down At A Table, And Alone, Turns Inward; Amid Its Shadows, He Builds A New World With Words.

...the Endless Repetition Of An Ordinary Miracle.

Morality Is Probably The Last Thing One Can Learn From Football.

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

After All, Isn't The Purpose Of The Novel, Or Of A Museum, For That Matter, To Relate Our Memories With Such Sincerity As To Transform Individual Happiness Into A Happiness All Can Share?

Individual Happiness

I See Turkey's Future As Being In Europe, As One Of Many Prosperous, Tolerant, Democratic Countries.

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.

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