Orhan Pamuk: Quotes about life

Orhan Pamuk is Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient. Explore interesting quotes on life.
Orhan Pamuk: 110 quotes63 likes

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”

Orhan Pamuk book The New Life

Source: The New Life

“Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

“My unhappiness protects me from life.”

Orhan Pamuk

“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?”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

“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.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

“Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

“[N]othing is as surprising as life. Except for writing. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the only consolation.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Black Book

Source: The Black Book

“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.”

Orhan Pamuk book Istanbul: Memories and the City

Source: Istanbul: Memories and the City

“She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

“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.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

“Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere”

Orhan Pamuk book The New Life

Source: The New Life

“Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

“The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. 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. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk

" My Father's Suitcase", Nobel Prize for Literature lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html (December 7, 2006).