My unhappiness protects me from life.
Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.
I sometimes joke that I am the first writer of historical fiction who can look out his window and point to the objects in his novels. I have a view of the entrance to the Bosporus, the old city, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque.
As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them.
More than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author’s job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion.
The urbanized life has lead to the destruction of the legends.
I am proud to be a Turk, and to write in Turkish about Turkey – and to have been translated into about 40 languages. But I don’t want to politicize things by dramatizing them.
What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.
I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work.
In actuality, we don’t look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is preciously what they cannot depict. That’s why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life.
It’s a great relief for me that no one will ask me anymore: “Orhan, when will you get the Nobel Prize?”
Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.
Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we’re being heroic, it usually means we’re about to kill each other – or kill ourselves.
I work seven days a week, from 9 in the morning till 8 at night. I have the titles of the next eight novels I want to write. I feel myself pitiable, degraded on a day that I don’t write.
I identify with my culture, but I am happy to be living on a tolerant, intellectual island where I can deal with Dostoyevsky and Sartre, both great influences for me.
Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life.
Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.
Oscar Wilde always makes me smile – with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wildes books in a bookshop makes me smile.
Actually, it’s the other way round. In a poor country, the only consolation people can have is the one that comes from their beliefs.
We fall in love more deeply when were unhappy.