Azar Nafisi Quotes - Page 2

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• Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

  Azar Nafisi

  Hurt, Memories, Independent

  "Reading Lolita in Tehran". Book by Azar Nafisi, 2003.

  9 Copy quote

• Every great work of art ... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Betrayal, Infidelity

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.47, Random House

  63 Copy quote

• The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dancing, Mind, Brutality

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.76, Random House

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• It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand the other’s different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them.

  Azar Nafisi

  Shoes, Different, Literature

  "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books". Book by Azar Nafisi, www.sfgate.com. 2003.

  6 Copy quote

• A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic - not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels - the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

  Azar Nafisi

  Pain, Lying, Heart

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.132, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.

  Azar Nafisi

  Government, Iran, People

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. February 5, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

• Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed to immutable.

  Azar Nafisi

  Home, Imagination, Expectations

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.94, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• For more than 30 years the Islamic regime and its apologists have tried to dismiss women's struggle in Iran as part of a western ploy.

  Azar Nafisi

  Struggle, Islamic, Iran

  4 Copy quote

• We do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for the pure, sensual, and unadulterated pleasure of reading. And if we do so, our reward is the discovery of the many hidden layers within these works that do not merely reflect reality but reveal a spectrum of truths, thus intrinsically going against the grain of totalitarian mindsets.

  Azar Nafisi

  Reading, Reality, Discovery

  7 Copy quote

• My passion has always been books and literature, and teaching.

  Azar Nafisi

  Book, Teaching, Passion

  4 Copy quote

• Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.

  Azar Nafisi

  Passion, Past, Order

  4 Copy quote

• Thus the regime has deprived Iranian women not just of their present rights, but also of their history and their past.

  Azar Nafisi

  Past, Rights, Regimes

  4 Copy quote

• In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Betrayal, Lying

  9 Copy quote

• The revolution taught me not to be consoled by other people's miseries, not to feel thankful because so many others had suffered more. Pain and loss, like love and joy, are unique and personal; they cannot be modified by comparison to others.

  Azar Nafisi

  Pain, Loss, Unique

  7 Copy quote

• After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities.

  Azar Nafisi

  Islamic, America, Iran

  9 Copy quote

• I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.

  Azar Nafisi

  Memories, Rain, Path

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.59, Random House

  9 Copy quote

• Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies.

  Azar Nafisi

  Reality, Limits, Fairy Tale

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.47, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• When I walked down the streets, I asked myself, are these my people?, is this my hometown, am I who I am?

  Azar Nafisi

  Who I Am, People, Hometown

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.74, Random House

  8 Copy quote

• She was one of those people who are irrevocably, incurably honest and therefore both inflexible and vulnerable at the same time.

  Azar Nafisi

  Honesty, People, Honest

  5 Copy quote

• I think Islam is in a sense, in crisis. It needs to question and re-question itself.

  Azar Nafisi

  Thinking, Islam, Needs

  Interview with David Brancaccio, www.pbs.org. June 20, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

• i could have told him to learn from Gatsby. from the lonely, isolated Gatsby, who also tried to retrieve his past and give flash and blood to a fancy, a dream that was never meant to be more than a dream.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, Lonely, Past

  Azar Nafisi (2015). “Reading Lolita in Tehran”, p.118, Penguin UK

  7 Copy quote

• None of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.

  Azar Nafisi

  Attitude, Evil, World

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.330, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination.

  Azar Nafisi

  Evil, Imagination, Soul

  6 Copy quote

• Art is no longer snobbish or cowardly. It teaches peasants to use tractors, gives lyrics to young soldiers, designs textiles for factory women's dresses, writes burlesque for factory theatres, does a hundred other useful tasks. Art is as usueful as bread.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Writing, Giving

  8 Copy quote

• I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination.

  Azar Nafisi

  Rights, Imagination, Bills

  Azar Nafisi (2015). “Reading Lolita in Tehran”, p.337, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

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