Nights of Plague Quotes

“patriots who rose up in revolt against their colonizers and ran headfirst, flags aloft, toward the invaders’ relentless machine guns.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

“It was a calm summer evening, with no wind in the air. The endless chirping of the crickets and the light pouring out from the numberless stars into the dark and deep blue sky enhanced the sheikh’s state of Hurufi intoxication. Life and meaning, signs and objects, darkness and absence, made up the universe of clues. Light and Soul, Loneliness and Beauty, Strength and Illusion, composed the poetry of the heart. And so the union of Love and God followed a trail of ink winding through the stars, the branches, the scent of flowers, the sound of birds (owls and crows), and the scuttling march of the hedgehogs in the plague-struck night.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

“Only a poet—not a novelist, and certainly not a historian—would be able to describe the despair that began to seep through the city toward the middle of June.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

“The art of the novel is based on the craft of telling our own stories as if they belonged to others, and of telling other people’s stories as if they were our own.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

“in the twenty-first century, with the era of traditional empires and colonies long since behind us, the word “nationalist” has become a label almost always employed to lend prestige to the behavior of people who tend to agree with everything their government says, have no other aim but to curry favor with those in power, and lack the courage to stand up to authority.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

“Roman sanatı kendi yaşadığımız hikayeleri başkalarının hikayesi gibi, başkalarının yaşadığı hikayeleri de kendimiz yaşamışız gibi yazabilme hünerine dayanır.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Veba Geceleri