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ORHAN KEMAL - QUOTATIONS - THE KOC SCHOOL

 
İlyas Usta, “What is true is to learn. It doesn’t matter where you learn from. It is not important where you learn from and how you learn, and even whether or not you have a diploma, or what you know. Important is what you do.”, Arkadaş Islıkları
 
“Eighty percent of people look at how you say something rather than what you say …”Avare Yıllar
“Where are your earrings?” “Your grand mother got them back. They say that they borrowed them from their neighbors. They did it just to honor the name of your father and just as a show against all the people around us, be they enemies or friends. Take it easy my dear husband” she said. “Everybody chews gums, but gypsies take a taste out of it.” We went on taking a taste out of life …”, Avare Yıllar
 
“He gazed at İstanbul through his wet eyelashes after midnight. It was a gorgeous and magnificent city indeed. It was like glorious flowers by cliffs. It would attract people towards itself, and then watch them as they fall down the cliff”, Kötü Yol
 
“Moon was rising while losing its redness. It was escaping into the dark skies, looking icy cold and glittering. A silver path on the sea was flowing like a stream of light in the deep dark waters …”, Sokakların Çocuğu
 
“These lands existed on earth when there was no human-invented law, and the deeds of this invented law. These lands that existed on earth before men were probably far more cheerful and healthier than they are now. Strong winds would blow over these lands in the past, too. They would bring and spread seeds of unknown lands over these cheerful and healthy lands, and cheerful and healthy lands would embrace them in return. They would embrace them tight to germinate them by the help of the rain and the sun. Germinated seeds would come out of the earth, grow tall, give fruit and make the earth a table of happy brothers and sisters.”, Kanlı Topraklar
 
“Philosophizing? What does it mean? What happens when you do it? It is like stringing beads of cigarette smog!...”, Kanlı Topraklar
 
“Men should exist on earth to give his life for other men, or otherwise, they shouldn’t crowd the world …”, Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde

“Realism is not merely to reflect the society that we live in. The true realism and true patriotism are to see the defects of your society, and to reflect on where they come from in order to get rid of them. Patriotism is to love the people of your country or, in other words, to ensure a good life for them. It is also to fight those who try to prevent this.”, Bir Filiz Vardı

 

THE KOC SCHOOL STUDIENTS WORDS ABOUT ORHAN KEMAL

“I have noticed in the museum that Orhan Kemal was interested in history, and especially in the history of Fenerbahçe. I have learned that he never became rich; on the contrary, he was really poor when he was coming to İstanbul from Adana. I have been highly impressed of the fact that he never quit writing and that he used a nickname as a writer. I have gained a thoroughly new understandin of Orhan Kemal.”
Mehveş Uzun

“Orhan Kemal, who was a master of touching human spirit deep inside, left an unerasable trace in Turkish literature with his undying character “Murtaza”. This character, which has been played several times in movies and dramas since the day it was written, reflects the complex nature of human, depicted with black humor. Murtaza’s story is the sad comedy of the individual, who is boxed up between authority and correctness, who gets stuck in even more insolvable situations in the struggle to make no concessions on correctness, and who becomes even more distant from understanding human beings …”
a Critic About “Murtaza”

“Orhan Kemal was one of the millions who lived on this land and he was deeply affected by what he lived here just like other people.”
İrem Aksoy


“I have heard about many authors; but now I understand that all what I knew was really limited. I learned a lot of names, but I didn’t know anything about the undying master of Turkish literature. I have gotten to know Orhan Kemal for the first time; I have learned about his art works, his writing technique and his personality. What a passion hidden behind little words! What a pure realism in the way he says things! These are just the two of countless features that made him unforgettable. And, what makes him so special is his love for children and humans.”
Verda Uyar


“Towards the end of one of his stories, Orhan Kemal says: ‘Everybody chews gums, but gypsies take a taste out of it.’ This shows that he was a strong observer of human behaviors, as it is not easy to do it for average eyes.”
Kıvanç Şengün


What made Orhan Kemal this successful is that he belonged to the society he lived in. He didn’t write about the people he didn’t know. Orhan Kemal’s thoughts are snapshots from real life. This is why he wrote them as they were; as painful as they were. His stories would be less heart-wrenching if he wrote about the things and humans that he didn’t know personally.
Deniz Arıtürk

As we have learned from his son; Orhan Kemal would always seek something good in everything. He would hide hope in things. He would combine the hurting nature of realism with hope. He would say “Let’s hope that dark days do not end up dark.”
Zeynep Çetindağ


Notwithstanding their heart-wrenching nature, Orhan Kemal’s stories are reality stories, and Orhan Kemal is realistic although he sometimes makes us feel upset with the Unhappy Ends of his stories.
Leyla Ateş


We can say that Orhan Kemal’s messages and characters are connected with his own life. The author produced realistic literature works based on his own experiences.
İpek Elmacıoğlu


The political party- which his father was a member of- was closed in his childhood, and this caused him change his living place frequently. This is why he got to know new people, and discovered different worlds. It is of no doubt that one has to be a strong observer and a joe public in order to become a good writer. We wouldn’t have the chance to have a realistic and sociable writer like Orhan Kemal if he lived at rich places, away from these strata of the society.
İpek Mert


As he believed in justice on earth, he put a message at the end of his stories. He could look at the lives of poor people objectively, as his own economic condition was poor. I wish Orhan Kemal were still alive and could see that there are students who believe in the world that he dreamed of.
Sena Öktem

 


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