Azar Nafisi Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The more we die, the stronger we will become

  Azar Nafisi

  Stronger, Dies

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.104, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• It takes courage to die for a cause, but also to live for one.

  Azar Nafisi

  Causes, Tehran, Dies

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.249, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Art is as useful as bread.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Bread, Art Is

  4 Copy quote

• those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account.

  Azar Nafisi

  Judging, Personality, Individual

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.118, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, Reality, Color

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.11, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if you don't compromise, you may suffer.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, Reality, Suffering

  4 Copy quote

• When I was teaching at the University of Tehran we were struggling against the implementation of the revolution rules.

  Azar Nafisi

  Struggle, Teaching, Revolution

  4 Copy quote

• I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.

  Azar Nafisi

  America, People, Soul

  54 Copy quote

• Imagine you are walking down a leafy path...The sun is receding, and you are walking alone, caressed by the breezy light of the late afternoon. Then suddenly, you feel a large drop on your right arm. Is it raining? You look up. The sky is still deceptively sunny...seconds later another drop. Then, with the sun still perched in the sky, you are drenched in a shower of rain. This is how memories invade me, abruptly and unexpectedly.

  Azar Nafisi

  Memories, Rain, Light

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

  17 Copy quote

• I'm a perfectly equipped failure.

  Azar Nafisi

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.201, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• When I first left Iran at the age of 13, Iran had become such a shining star - it was the point to which all my desires and dreams returned.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, Stars, Iran

  7 Copy quote

• There is little consolation in the fact that millions of people are unhappier than we are. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?

  Azar Nafisi

  People, Littles, Facts

  4 Copy quote

• Khatami is a symptom and not the cause of change in Iran.

  Azar Nafisi

  Iran, Causes, Symptoms

  "Mutually Assured Misunderstanding". Interview with Wen Stephenson, www.pbs.org. April 23, 2002 - May 2, 2002.

  4 Copy quote

• If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat.

  Azar Nafisi

  Book, Order, Sanctuary

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.170, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half existed, because we could not imaginatively realize ourselves and communicate to the world, because we had used works of imagination to serve as handmaidens to some political ploy.

  Azar Nafisi

  Imagination, Political, Feelings

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.339, Random House

  5 Copy quote

• Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.

  Azar Nafisi

  Real, Trying, Fiction

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.3, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Visa for Avalon is a testament to the power of fiction. It illuminates the truth at the heart of what is commonly called reality. This account of lives transformed and ruined by the triumph of a totalitarian rule is a timely reminder of how moral and intellectual laziness and apathy can pave the road to the reign of terror brought on by such a system.

  Azar Nafisi

  Heart, Reality, Intellectual

  4 Copy quote

• What dazzles us in Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra are not the alluring mythologies about the evasive queen, but the astonishing if rare historical facts that Schiff has meticulously and lovingly excavated. Schiff offers not just Cleopatra's story but the story of an amazing era, one that has vanished but still affects us, questioning the way we look at myth, history, and ourselves.

  Azar Nafisi

  Queens, Historical, Looks

  4 Copy quote

• I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?

  Azar Nafisi

  Children, Giving Up, Pain

  4 Copy quote

• This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?

  Azar Nafisi

  Girl, Religious, Islamic

  "Iran’s Women: Canaries in the Coal Mine" by Azar Nafisi, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 9, 2010.

  9 Copy quote

• In the past 30 years, officials of the Iranian regime and its apologists have labeled criticism, especially with regard to women's rights, as anti-Islamic and pro-Western, justifying its brutalities by ascribing them to Islam and Iran's culture.

  Azar Nafisi

  Islamic, Past, Years

  "Iran’s Women: Canaries in the Coal Mine" by Azar Nafisi, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 9, 2010.

  9 Copy quote

• I would like to say how much I resent people who say of the Islamic Republic that this is our culture - as if women like to be stoned to death, or as if they like to be married at the age of nine.

  Azar Nafisi

  Islamic, People, Age

  4 Copy quote

• I finally returned to Iran in 1979, when I got my degree in English and American literature, and stayed for 18 years in the Islamic republic.

  Azar Nafisi

  Islamic, Iran, Years

  4 Copy quote

• With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem.

  Azar Nafisi

  Self Esteem, Lying, Matter

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

  6 Copy quote

• America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?

  Azar Nafisi

  America, Poetic License, Vision

  6 Copy quote

Page 3 of 4

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin