My Name is Red

by Orhan Pamuk

As with the Koran—God forbid I’m misunderstood—the staggering power of such a book arises from the impossibility of its being depicted. I doubt you’ve fully comprehended this fact.

As I stare at people’s faces, I realize that many of them believe they’re innocent because they haven’t yet had the opportunity to snuff out a life. It’s hard to believe that most men are more moral or better than me simply on account of some minor twist of fate. At most, they wear somewhat stupider expressions because they haven’t yet killed, and like all fools, they appear to have good intentions.

Over time, jealousy becomes an element as indispensable as paint in the life of the master artist.

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

To avoid disappointment in art, one mustn’t treat it as a career.

he quit drinking coffee, and naturally, his brain stopped working.

True ability and talent couldn’t be corrupted even by the love of gold or fame. Furthermore, if truth be told, money and fame are the inalienable rights of the talented, as in my case, and only inspire us to greater feats.

Now, however, I have the sense that evil can be endured, and moreover, that it’s indispensable to an artist.

Just before I died, I actually longed for my death, and at the same time, I understood the answer to the question that I’d spent my entire life pondering, the answer I couldn’t find in books: How was it that everybody, without exception, succeeded in dying? It was precisely through this simple desire to pass on. I also understood that death would make me a wiser man.

Color is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness.

We treat most men like morons because, indeed, most men are morons, not because we’re poisoned by anger, unhappiness or some other flaw in character. (Granted, treating these people better would be more refined and sensible.)

Contrary to what is commonly believed, all murderers are men of extreme faith rather than unbelievers.

beauty is the eye discovering in our world what the mind already knows.

Time doesn’t flow if you don’t dream.

the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room.