A Strangeness in My Mind Quotes

“Askeri darbenin en kötü günlerinde Diyarbakırlılar hapishaneden gelen işkence çığlıklarıyla sindirilmişken, Ankara’dan şehre müfettiş kılıklı bir adam gelmiş. Esrarengiz ziyaretçi kendisini havaalanından oteline götüren taksinin Kürt şoförüne Diyarbakır’da hayatın nasıl olduğunu sormuş. Şoför de bütün Kürtlerin yeni askeri yönetiminden çok memnun olduğunu, Türk bayrağından başkasına inanmadıklarını, ayrılıkçı teröristlerin hapse atılmasından sonra şehir halkının çok mutlu olduğunu söylemiş. ‘Ben avukatım,’ demiş Ankara’dan gelen ziyaretçi. ‘Hapiste işkence görenleri, Kürtçe konuştu diye köpeklere yedirilenleri savunmaya geldim.’ Bunun üzerine şoför ilk sözlerinin tam tersi bir havaya girmiş, hapishanede Kürtlere yapılan işkenceleri, canlı canlı lağımlara atılanları, dövüle dövüle öldürülenleri sayıp dökmüş. Ankara’dan gelen avukat dayanamayıp şoförün sözünü kesmiş. ‘Ama az önce tam tersini söylüyordun,’ demiş. Diyarbakırlı şoför de ‘Avukat bey, haklısınız,’ demiş. ‘İlk söylediğim resmi görüşümdü. İkinci söylediğim de şahsi görüşümdür.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“so the knowledge of their presence remained, for the time being, strictly within the bounds of people’s private thoughts, lying dormant in a corner of their minds like a secret language spoken only at home.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“The gulf between the private and public views of our countrymen is evidence of the power of the state. —Celâl Salik, Milliyet”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Köpekler bizden olmayanı sezer, anlar. Onlarda bu haslet Allah vergisidir. Bu yüzden Avrupalıları taklit etmek isteyenler köpeklerden korkar. Osmanlı’nın belkemiği Yeniçerileri katlederek Batılılar’a bizi ezdiren II. Mahmut İstanbul’un köpeklerini de katletmiş, öldüremediklerini Hayırsızada’ya sürgün etmişti.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“Çok hata ettim, ona hava attım, onunla arkadaş olamadım,” dedi Süleyman. “Ama o da çok sivri dilliydi. Kimse, kızlarla nasıl konuşulur, bu zor işin sırrını bize öğretmedi. Bir erkekle konuşur gibi, ama hiç küfür etmeden konuşuyordum. Olmadı”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“But if he were to come anywhere near my table, people might gossip; they might remember that he’d actually written those letters to me and start talking about it again…I bet that’s what he’s afraid of. Oh, Mevlut, you coward. He keeps looking at me, but then pretending he didn’t. But I look right back at him, just the way I did at Korkut’s wedding twenty-three years ago, just, as he wrote in his letters, as if I wanted to take him prisoner with my ensorcelled eyes. I looked at him so I could cut across his path like a bandit and steal his heart away, so that he would be struck by the force of my gaze. I looked at him so that he could see his reflection in the mirror of my heart.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Don’t let rich people make you feel ashamed. The only difference between us and them is that they got to Istanbul first and started making money before we did.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“At night, he could sense the weight of the concrete, the hardness, and the horrors of the city around him.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Now he knew what it was that he wanted to tell Istanbul and write on its walls. It was both his public and his private view; it was what his heart intended as much as what his words had always meant to say. He said it to himself: “I have loved Rayiha more than anything in this world.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“what makes the city a city is that it lets you hide the strangeness in your mind inside its teeming multitudes.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Evet, bütün dünya Türk’ün düşmanıdır, ama Türk’ün en büyük düşmanı Türk’ün kendisidir.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Aptallık kötülüğün özrü olamaz.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Nightclub wars were the worst kind of trouble: back in the day, when rival establishments and their gangs declared war on each other, they would kidnap each other’s singers and belly dancers and hold them hostage, shooting them in the kneecaps eventually”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“just pop this one out, too,”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“The Holy Guide reminded him that in Islam labor was a form of prayer.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“God takes note of His creatures’ true intentions. The Lord favors a man who intends to fast during Ramadan over a man who fasts because he can’t find food to eat anyway. Because one of them means it, while the other one doesn’t.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“.....despair is what keeps love alive.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“God loves some people more. Those people end up rich. He loves some people a little less, and those people stay poor. You take a pin and scratch off one of these colored circles, and underneath you’ll find your gift and your fortune.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“newer and more modern cemeteries, devoid of cypress trees or any other vegetation, were usually situated well outside the new quarters and surrounded by tall concrete walls, just like factories, military bases, and hospitals.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“There are three types of buildings in Istanbul,” he used to say: (1) those full of devout families where people say their daily prayers and leave their shoes outside, (2) rich and Westernized homes where you can go in with your shoes on, (3) new high-rise blocks where you can find a mix of both sorts.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“Yaşlandıkça hem camiye daha çok giden, hem de daha çok rakı içenler gibi olmamıştı Mevlut, az içiyordu”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“Tıpkı sevdiği kızın ölümünden sonra hayatın başkaları için bütün sıradanlığı ile sürüp gitmesini bir türlü kaldıramayan kişi gibi bir öfke duydu bu insanlara.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“Çok doğru,” dedi Süleyman. Bana kalırsa bana hak verdiği için değil, Hazreti Peygamber’li, Kuran-ı Kerim’li bir lafa asla karşı çıkamadığı için”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“Mevlut arkadasinin bu sozunu de inandirici bulmadi ve o gunku sohbetleri boyunca birbirlerine yalnizca resmi goruslerini soylediklerini kederle dusundu. Oysa yirmi alti yil once Kismet satarken arkadasliklarini baslatan sey, sahsi goruslerini birbirlerine soyleyebileceklerine duyduklari iyimser inancti.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık

“In a city you can be alone in a crowd and in fact what makes the city a city is that it lets you hide the strangeness in your mind in its teeming multitudes.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“There is a danger the wheat might burn with the chaff.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Despatches from Kargil

“Samiha. Entonces”
― Orhan Pamuk, Una sensación extraña

“pequeños comerciantes de Beyoglu, y ofreciendo por las”
― Orhan Pamuk, Una sensación extraña

“solo se arrepentía porque tuviera miedo, sino también”
― Orhan Pamuk, Una sensación extraña

“So this is how Mevlut came to understand the truth that a part of him had known all along: walking around the city at night made him feel as if he were wandering around inside his own head.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind