Azar Nafisi Quotes

Quotes about:

• You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.

  Azar Nafisi

  Love, Change, Strange Places

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.336, Random House

  57 Copy quote

• Every culture has something to be ashamed of, but every culture also has the right to change, to challenge negative traditions, and create to new ones.

  Azar Nafisi

  Challenges, Negative, Culture

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

  4 Copy quote

• I believe in empathy. I believe in the kind of empathy that is created through imagination and through intimate, personal relationships. I am a writer and a teacher, so much of my time is spent interpreting stories and connecting to other individuals. It is the urge to know more about ourselves and others that creates empathy. Through imagination and our desire for rapport, we transcend our limitations, freshen our eyes, and are able to look at ourselves and the world through a new and alternative lens.

  Azar Nafisi

  Teacher, Believe, Eye

  15 Copy quote

• The existence of the writer is to write, and to write is to tell the truth.

  Azar Nafisi

  Women, Writing, Telling The Truth

  4 Copy quote

• Only curiosity about the fate of others, the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the will to enter their world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of recognition. Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.

  Azar Nafisi

  Fate, Shoes, Imagination

  14 Copy quote

• You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.

  Azar Nafisi

  Self, Issues, Evil

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.133, Random House

  23 Copy quote

• A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

  Azar Nafisi

  Heart, Character, Destiny

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.111, Random House

  17 Copy quote

• Living in the Islamic Republic is like having sex with someone you loathe.

  Azar Nafisi

  Sex, Islamic, Republic

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.329, Random House

  15 Copy quote

• Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.

  Azar Nafisi

  Atrocities, Silent, Innocent

  16 Copy quote

• Look at Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution and the slogans that they used: anti-imperialism; anti-colonialism; the struggle of the have-nots against the haves; the state monopoly over economy, which was very much patterned after the Soviet Union. All of these things did not come out of Islam. Islam is not that developed.

  Azar Nafisi

  Struggle, Islam, Colonialism

  14 Copy quote

• Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.

  Azar Nafisi

  Country, Born, Exile

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

  7 Copy quote

• Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

  Azar Nafisi

  Country, Views, Iran

  16 Copy quote

• Poor reading, like poor writing, is imposing what you already know on texts. You should go into reading to discover, not to reaffirm what you know.

  Azar Nafisi

  Reading, Writing, Poor

  4 Copy quote

• That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

  Azar Nafisi

  Imagination, Littles, Restless

  14 Copy quote

• I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you. In one way or another we articulate what has happened to us through the kind of people we become.

  Azar Nafisi

  Believe, People, Mind

  Azar Nafisi (2009). “Things I've Been Silent About: Memories”, p.23, Random House

  11 Copy quote

• The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, People, Vision

  10 Copy quote

• The crisis besetting America is not just an economic or political crisis; something deeper is wreaking havoc across the land, a mercenary and utilitarian attitude that demonstrates little empathy for people’s actual well-being, that dismisses imagination and thought, branding passion for knowledge as irrelevant.

  Azar Nafisi

  Attitude, Passion, Land

  Azar Nafisi (2014). “The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books”, p.20, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.

  Azar Nafisi

  Order, Imagination, Needs

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

  11 Copy quote

• I eat my heart out alone.

  Azar Nafisi

  Heart, My Heart

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.214, Random House

  9 Copy quote

• A novel is not moral in the usual sense of the word. It can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.

  Azar Nafisi

  Believe, Usual, Moral

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.129, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom.

  Azar Nafisi

  Taken, Possibility, Away From You

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.28, Random House

  11 Copy quote

• 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

• The dearer a book was to my heart, the more battered and bruised it became.

  Azar Nafisi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Book

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.92, Random House

  4 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

• 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

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