- Novelist | June 7, 1952 -
For me, Westernization is not about consuming fanciful goods; it's about a system of free speech, democracy, egalitarianism and respect for the people's rights and dignity.
Orhan Pamuk
RespectPeopleMeDemocracyFree
I wrote 'My Name is Red' just to remember painting, where the hand does it before the intellect. When I'm captive to it, I'm a happier person. Kierkegaard tells us that a happy person is someone who lives in the present; the unhappy person, someone who lives either in the past or the future.
FuturePastRedHappyPaintingName
I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.'
HistoryRomanticCreativeSaying
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.
LifeWorkLoveDayAngryI Am
I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonists different from those in Western novels - more real, more quintessentially of Istanbul.
StoryFeelingMoreRealThrough
I would be pleased if someone would invent a pill to remove my impatience, moodiness, and occasional bursts of anger. But if they did, I wouldn't be able to write my novels or paint.
AngerSomeoneWritePaintPillAble
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.
PowerAloneReligionMistakeControl
I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.
EvilDoneWantWayWestSimply
My hero wants to belong too, but he doesn't want to give up all the things he came to value in the west.
HeroValueWantUpBelongThings
The hero of the book does long to experience God. But his conception of God is very western.
GodHeroExperienceBookLongVery
The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup.
ChallengePoliticalFindConviction
I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries.
FutureSeeEuropeI SeeDemocratic
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