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 don't like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels... I keep my deep, radical things for my novels.
Interpretation
The author prefers to express profound ideas through storytelling rather than making bold claims in public.
In this quote, Orhan Pamuk expresses a belief in the power of literature to convey deep thoughts and emotions. He suggests that rather than making overt statements that may provoke or alienate, he chooses to embed his radical ideas into the fabric of his novels, allowing readers to engage with them organically and thoughtfully through the narrative.
In practice
During a book club discussion about the role of authors in society.
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.
A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.
I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.
Musicals are β particularly musicals β plays also, but musicals particularly areβ¦ the last collaborator is your audience, and so youβve got to wait βtil the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
What I dream of is an art of balance.
What I'm always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of campfires and fireplaces - the ghost stories that engaged us.
I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet.
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