Azar Nafisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

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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
Do not, under any circumstances belittle a works 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
When I walked down the streets, I asked myself, are these my people?, is this my hometown, am I who I am?

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

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

Azar Nafisi
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
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