Author

I sometimes feel nervous because I give stupid answers to certain pointless questions. It happens in Turkish as much as in English. I speak bad Turkish and utter stupid sentences.

From Orhan Pamuk

I have been attacked in Turkey more for my interviews than for my books. Political polemicists and columnists do not read novels there.

From Orhan Pamuk

When I was publishing my first books, the previous generation of authors was fading away, so I was welcomed because I was a new author.

From Orhan Pamuk

I have always thought that the place where you sleep or the place you share with your partner should be separate from the place where you write. The domestic rituals and details somehow kill the imagination. They kill the demon in me.

From Orhan Pamuk

Generally, I get bad reviews in Turkey.

From Orhan Pamuk

I don't judge my characters.

From Orhan Pamuk

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.

From Orhan Pamuk

When I write, I feel that I'm writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it's some other force making me paint. I - as I wrote in my novel 'My Name is Red' - watch with amazement what my hand is doing on the paper, what kind of line, what kind of strange, beautiful thing it's doing in spite of my will, so to speak.

From Orhan Pamuk

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.

From Orhan Pamuk

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.

From Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk

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