You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.
quote by Azar Nafisi
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
quote by Azar Nafisi
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.
quote by Azar Nafisi
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Every great work of art... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.
Azar Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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 in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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 in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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 cormulas about good and evil.
Azar Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
Azar Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven.
Azar Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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 in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Added by Simona Enache
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!