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 PamukRead
I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonists different from those in Western novels - more real, more quintessentially of Istanbul.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the idea of using objects to create authentic stories that reflect the uniqueness of a place.
Orhan Pamuk emphasizes the importance of cultural context in storytelling, suggesting that by focusing on the physical objects around us, one can convey deeper truths about characters and settings. This approach aims to enrich narratives with authenticity, particularly in relation to Istanbul's unique essence, setting it apart from Western literary traditions.
In practice
Using this quote when discussing the cultural significance of objects in literature at a book club.
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.
The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.
Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.
It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other.
We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart
These political movements flourish on the margins of Turkish society because of poverty and because of the people's feeling that they are not being represented.
The radio makes hideous sounds.
There must be so many people who have various artistic talents that, for whatever reason, just have no way of expressing them. Either they have no support from their family or they live in a part of the world, maybe they've never heard a piano or seen a piano.
Drawing is the art of taking a line for a walk.
The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.
I am never going to stop playing the villain. I would be foolish to do so because the audiences apparently enjoy watching me, and who am I to say no?
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