In poetically well built museums, formed from the heart's compulsions, we are consoled not by finding in them old objects that we love, but by losing all sense of Time.

It's a great relief for me that no one will ask me anymore: "Orhan, when will you get the Nobel Prize?"

The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing they could control it with the power of the army alone.

Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time," Pamuk said then. "I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.

It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him.

Many great authors of the 19th century wrote under conditions of strict censorship. The great thing about the art of writing a novel, is that you can write about anything. All you have to say is that it's fiction.

My hero wants to belong too, but he doesn't want to give up all the things he came to value in the west.