Azar Nafisi Quotes - Page 3

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• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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 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

• We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle.

  Azar Nafisi

  Pay, Crime, Settling

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.119, Random House

  4 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• The reason I am so popular is that I give others back what they need to find in themselves. You need me not because I tell you what I want you to do but because I articulate and justify what you want to do.

  Azar Nafisi

  Giving, Needs, Want

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.182, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.

  Azar Nafisi

  Thinking, Issues, Want

  4 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Art is as useful as bread.

  Azar Nafisi

  Art, Bread, Art Is

  4 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

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

  Azar Nafisi

  Book, Teaching, Passion

  4 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

• 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

• We in ancient countries have our past- we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future.

  Azar Nafisi

  Dream, Country, Past

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.109, Random House

  8 Copy quote

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