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 realized that the longing for art, like the longing for love, is a malady that blinds us, and makes us forget the things we already know, obscuring reality.
Interpretation
The desire for art, similar to the desire for love, can cloud our perception of reality and what we already understand.
In this quote, Orhan Pamuk reflects on the complex nature of our desires for both art and love, suggesting that such longings can overwhelm our senses and disrupt our understanding of reality. This blinding effect can lead us to forget the fundamental truths we already possess, highlighting the depth of emotional investment we place in these pursuits.
In practice
In an art class, when discussing the emotional impact of artworks.
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.
MORE CONSISTENTLY THAN EVER I WAS TRYING TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT CINEMA AS AN INSTRUMENT OF ART HAS ITS OWN POSSIBILITIES WHICH ARE EQUAL TO THOSE OF PROSE. I WANTED TO DEMONSTRATE HOW CINEMA IS ABLE TO OBSERVE LIFE, WITHOUT INTERFERING, CRUDELY OR OBVIOUSLY, WITH ITS CONTINUITY. FOR THAT IS WHERE I SEE THE POETIC ESSENCE OF CINEMA.
Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing.
If we doubt the power of literature and art to civilise, how come no one has ever been mugged by a person carrying a well-thumbed copy of 'Middlemarch' in his back pocket?
Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.
The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it's simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.
Architecture adds dimensions to my life that would be impossible to acquire if I retired. The beautiful thing about architecture is that every project is brand new. I am forced to renew myself with every project. Isn't that wonderful?
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