Orhan Pamuk Quotes (23 Quotes)

I blame him for his weakness and lack of determination. At the beginning of this year we had a wave of nationalist incidents and attacks on the E. U. project, including some by members of his own party. He did not look the problem in the eye and draw a clear line between anti-E. U. nationalism and the attitude of tolerance. He tried to avoid the subject.

There is no doubt that it will raise questions about the wisdom of Turkey's EU membership bid. How can it possibly claim to be a European country if it has such laws on the books, and if public prosecutors can bring such cases

At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.

For a country to enter the EU, there has to be full respect of minority rights, freedom of thought and expression. If you drag your feet and make cosmetic changes ... then this won't do. To believe that, you would need to be a child.

The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation.

The first edition was 100,000 copies, a huge economic risk for the publisher. I was quite proud of the fact that the book was not banned or censored.

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

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.

I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, 'Where is this melancholy city you talk about My Istanbul is a sunny place.

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.

Of course I'm for Turkey joining the EU. But it's too simple to say that will make us all well-off and solve all our problems. Since the referendums in France and the Netherlands, Europe is preoccupied with itself. Various ideas are competing with one another about the character of the Union. Will Europe define itself exclusively through the past This is a conservative view and can ultimately be reduced to discussions on agricultural policy and the distribution of funds. This is always the case with short-term politics. But in the long term Europe needs an all-encompassing vision of itself and for that reason I recommend that Turkey joins.

he complains. ''Otherwise it's offensive to discuss poverty and suicide they talk about these things as if they happen in a land beyond the civilized world.

I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.

I am a Turk. I've lived in Turkey for 43 years, and for that reason my political observations are about Turkey, because that's what I know.

I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city.

I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries.

At some point they figured out that you can win elections with a pro-European policy because the voters hope this will improve their lives.

I repeat, I said loud and clear that 1 million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey, and I stand by that.

There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.

The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup.

There is nothing that constitutes a crime in this interview.

The hero of the book does long to experience God. But his conception of God is very western.

Well, on the one hand the Turks have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity - and this includes being recognized as a part of the west and Europe.