1
" Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you've finished it, you can always go back to the beginning; if you like, you can read it through again, in order to figure out what you couldn't understand before, in order to understand life, isn't that so, Fatma? "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
8
" The afternoon nap, my mother used to say, is the best of all kinds of sleep. One has the best dreams after eating lunch. Yes. I would perspire a little at first and then relax until I felt light as a swallow. Afterward, we’d open the window to let out the stale air and let the fresh air in, together with the green branches of the trees in the garden in Nisantasi, and also to let my dreams escape, because I used to believe that my dreams continued on without me from wherever I left off with them. Maybe the same thing happens when we die, my thoughts floating around the room, inside the furniture, between the shutters closed tight, swirling around and brushing against my table and bed, over the walls and the ceiling, so that somebody slowly cracking open the door would think they saw the shadows of my memories: Shut the door, I don’t want my memories tainted, don’t poison them, just let my thoughts float in here like angels until Judgment Day, beneath my ceiling, in the hush of this house. "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
10
" If a person can live in the same house for seventy years and still be confused, then this thing that we call life, and imagine we have used up, must be such a strange and incomprehensible thing that no one can even know what their own life is. You stand there waiting and on it goes from place to place, no one knows why, and as it goes, you have many thoughts about where it’s been and where it’s headed; then just as you speak these strange thoughts, which aren’t right or wrong, and lead to no conclusion, you look, and the journey ends here, Fatma, okay, this is where you get off! First one foot, then the other, I get out of the carriage. I take two steps, then step back and look at the carriage. "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
11
" They fell quiet looking at the garden. They seemed a little sad, somehow pained, but at the same time perplexed. As though they were looking at their own thoughts and not seeing what they were actually looking at, not seeing the plants of the garden, the fig trees, and the hiding places of the crickets. But what can you see in thoughts? Pain, grief, hope, curiosity, longing, all those things stay with you to the end and your mind will wear itself out if you don’t put something else in there, where did I hear that, your mind will be like two millstones with no grist between them. Then: you go crazy! "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
13
" una vez terminada la vida, ese viaje en coche de caballos en un solo sentido, no puedes volver a empezar de nuevo; pero si tienes un libro entre las manos, por confuso e incomprensible que sea, cuando lo terminas puedes, si quieres, volver al principio para leerlo otra vez y comprender lo incomprensible, para comprender la vida, ¿verdad, Fatma? 1980-1983 "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
15
" Kažu nešto ili se našale tako da od mene naprave budalu. Ja se tad pokušavam sjetiti nečega što bi dobro sjelo na njihovu šalu, ali mi ne padne odmah na pamet, i dok smišljam što bih im odgovorio, oni se, vidjevši na mome licu zbunjenost još više smiju, pa se ja naljutim ili im, ne uspjevši se suzdržati, nešto opsujem, i na kraju po njihovu smijehu uvidim da su od mene napravili još veću budalu. Tad poželim ostati sam; kad je sam, čovjek može s mirom razmišljati o velikim stvarima koje bi u životu mogao napraviti. "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
16
" Mnogo je toga u životu, vjerojatno je tako, ali ti, eto, čekaš. Ovako to meni izgleda: stvari koje bih želio da se dogode potrebno je dugo čekati, a kad se i dogode, ne dogode se onako kako sam ih ja zamišljao i očekivao; kao da su se sve urotile protiv mene: dolaze polako, polako, a dok se snađeš i pogledaš, već su i prošle. "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
18
" I’ll take all those crimes and robberies, wars and villagers, generals and crooks, that are asleep in the silence of the archives and write each of them down, one by one, on slips of paper the size of playing cards. Then I’ll shuffle that awesome deck consisting of hundreds—no, millions—of cards, just as you shuffle a deck of playing cards, but, of course, with much more difficulty, perhaps using special machines, like those lottery machines in front of notaries, and I’ll place them in the hands of my readers! And I’ll tell them: None of these has any connection with any other, preceding or following, front or back, cause or effect. Come, young reader, this is life and history, read it as you will. Everything that exists is in here, it all simply exists, but there’s no story binding it together. Then the disappointed young reader will ask: No story at all? At that point, appreciating his point of view, I’ll say, You’re right, at this age you do need a story to explain everything just so you can live in peace, otherwise you’d come unhinged. And with that, as if slipping a joker into my deck of millions of cards, I’d write Story and begin to gather together the cards in a way that tells a tale. "
― Orhan Pamuk , Sessiz Ev
