"I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning."
— Orhan Pamuk

"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."
— Orhan Pamuk (The New Life)

"[N]othing is as surprising as life. Except for writing. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the only consolation."
— Orhan Pamuk (The Black Book)

"'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.'"
— Orhan Pamuk (Snow)

"Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen."
— Orhan Pamuk

"The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse. "
— Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul: Memories and the City)

"I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. "
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"'What is the thing you want most from me? What can I do to make you love me?'

'Be yourself,' said Ipek."
— Orhan Pamuk (Snow)

"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 (Snow)

"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. "
— Orhan Pamuk (Other Colors: Essays and a Story)

"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."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"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 (Snow)

"painting is the silent of thought and the music of sight"
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed."
— Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul: Memories and the City)

"My unhappiness protects me from life."
— Orhan Pamuk

"¿Es el amor el que vuelve estúpidas a las personas o es que sólo los estúpidos se enamoran?"
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"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."
— Orhan Pamuk (Snow)

"For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another. -- Snow pg 119"
— Orhan Pamuk

"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

"I don't want to be a tree, I want to be its meaning."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"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?"
— Orhan Pamuk

"It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him."
— Orhan Pamuk

"Os romances nunca serão totalmente imaginários nem totalmente reais. Ler um romance é confrontar-se tanto com a imaginação do autor quanto com o mundo real cuja superfície arranhamos com uma curiosidade tão inquieta. Quando nos refugiamos num canto, nos deitamos numa cama, nos estendemos num divã com um romance nas mãos, nossa imaginação passa a trafegar o tempo entre o mundo daquele romance e o mundo no qual ainda vivemos. O romance em nossas mãos pode nos levar a um outro mundo onde nunca estivemos, que nunca vimos ou de que nunca tivemos notícia. Ou pode nos levar até as profundezas ocultas de um personagem que, na superfície, parece semelhante às pessoas que conhecemos melhor. Estou chamando atenção para cada uma dessas possibilidades isoladas porque há uma visão que acalento de tempos em tempos que abarca os dois extremos. Às vezes tento conjurar, um a um, uma multidão de leitores recolhidos num canto e aninhados em suas poltronas com um romance nas mãos; e também tento imaginar a geografia de sua vida cotidiana. E então, diante dos meus olhos, milhares, dezenas de milhares de leitores vão tomando forma, distribuídos por todas as ruas da cidade, enquanto eles lêem, sonham os sonhos do autor, imaginam a existência dos seus heróis e vêem o seu mundo. E então, agora, esses leitores, como o próprio autor, acabam tentando imaginar o outro; eles também se põem no lugar de outra pessoa. E são esses os momentos em que sentimos a presença da humanidade, da compaixão, da tolerância, da piedade e do amor no nosso coração: porque a grande literatura não se dirige à nossa capacidade de julgamento, e sim à nossa capacidade de nos colocarmos no lugar do outro."
— Orhan Pamuk

"... el arte que es simplemente malo ni siquiera es capaz de provocarnos repugnancia. "
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand."
— Orhan Pamuk

"¿Qué es la honestidad la mayor parte de las veces sino miedo?"
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"La poesía y la pintura, el color y la palabra, son hermanos, ya lo sabes."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"La sabiduría de una ciudad no hay que medirla por los sabios que acoge, ni por sus bibliotecas, ni por sus ilustradores, calígrafos y medersas, sino por el número de crímenes tortuosos cometidos en sus calles oscuras a lo largo de miles de años."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Das echte Liebesleid nistet sich an der Basis unserer Existenz ein, erwischt uns unerbittlich an unserem schwächsten Punkt, greift von da auf alles andere über und verteilt sich unaufhaltsam über unseren ganzen Körper und unser ganzes Leben. Wenn wir unglücklich verliebt sind, dienen unsere sämtlichen Leiden und Sorgen, vom Tod des Vaters bis hin zum banalsten Missgeschick, wie zum Beispiel einem verlegten Schlüssel, als neuerlicher Auslöser für den Urschmerz, der stets bereit ist, wieder anzuschwellen. Wessen Leben durch die Liebe auf den Kopf gestellt wird, so wie meines, der meint immer, zusammen mit dem Liebesleid würden auch alle anderen Sorgen ein Ende finden, und so rührt er unwillkürlich immer wieder an der Wunde in sich drinnen."
— Orhan Pamuk (Masumiyet Müzesi)

"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!'"
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Ist nicht eigentliches Ziel von Roman und Museum, unsere Erinnerungen so aufrichtig wie möglich zu erzählen und dadurch unser Glück in das Glück anderer zu verwandeln?"
— Orhan Pamuk (Masumiyet Müzesi)

"... los colores no pueden comprenderse, se sienten."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"El significado de los colores es que están ante nosotros y podemos verlos - le contestó el otro -. No se puede explicar el rojo a quien no lo ha visto."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"El color es el tacto del ojo, la música de los sordos, una palabra en la oscuridad."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"... la muerte no es el final de todo, eso seguro. Pero, tal y como está escrito en todos los libros, es algo que produce un dolor increíble."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"... termitas, gusanos y mil y un bichos carcomerán nuestros libros hasta destruirlos."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"... lo habían encuadernado cuidadosamente con un papel de aguas azul que hacía recordar los sueños."
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)

"Una carta no dice lo que quiere decir sólo con lo que está escrito. Las cartas, como los libros, se leen también oliéndolas, tocándolas, manoseándolas."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"... el desinterés, el tiempo y los desastres naturales irán royendo lentamente nuestras pinturas hasta acabar con ellas."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Es algo sabido que la vida no está predeterminada y que todas las historias son una cadena de casualidades. Pero incluso los que son conscientes de esa realidad, cuando llega cierto momento de su existencia y miran atrás, llegan a la conclusión de que lo que vivieron como casualidades no fueron sino hechos inevitables. "
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)

"...noté el frío de la nieve y recordé que no era ni un viejo ni un niño: en la piel sentía gozosamente el mundo."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Porque cuando ves esos cuadros tú también quieres verte así, quieres creer que eres una criatura completamente distinta a las demás, sin igual, particular y extraña."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Luego pensamos que un buen relato debe tener un comienzo infantil, un desarrollo terrorífico como una pesadilla y un final amargo como una historia de amor que termina en una separación. "
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)

"Nadie confía en nadie, todo el mundo espera alguna bajeza del prójimo."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Estoy sufriendo las penas del infierno sin ni siquiera haber muerto."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"Sabía que si regresaba a Venecia no podría retomar una vida que había dejado a medias en el mismo punto en que se había interrumpido. Como mucho, podría iniciar una vida distinta."
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)

"... en el país de los infieles francos todos los perros tienen dueño. Al parecer los pasean por las calles arrastrándolos con cadenas al cuello como si fueran los más miserables esclavos. Dicen que además introducen a esos pobres perros a sus casas y que incluso los meten en sus camas.
... No son cosas que los francos puedan comprender el que los perros paseemos en manadas y gavillas por la calles de nuestro Estambul..."
— Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)

"… se volvió hacia nosotros, que en ese momento estábamos de pie el uno junto al otro, y sonrió como si estuviera viendo una de esas inigualables maravillas creadas por Dios para doblegar el orgullo del ser humano y proclamar su estupidez, un enano perfecto o dos gemelos exactamente iguales."
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)

"Fue a lo largo de aquellos cuatro años cuando aprendí que la vida no es una espera sino algo que se puede disfrutar."
— Orhan Pamuk (The White Castle)