America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry? Azar Nafisi More Quotes by Azar Nafisi More Quotes From Azar Nafisi 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 soulimaginationevil Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams. Azar Nafisi colordreamreality those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account. Azar Nafisi individualpersonalityjudging When I walked down the streets, I asked myself, are these my people?, is this my hometown, am I who I am? Azar Nafisi hometownwho-i-ampeople We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle. Azar Nafisi settlingcrimepay 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 littlesfactspeople Thus the regime has deprived Iranian women not just of their present rights, but also of their history and their past. Azar Nafisi regimesrightspast 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 realtryingfiction The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality. Azar Nafisi brutalitydancingmind 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 shoesdifferentliterature We do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for the pure, sensual, and unadulterated pleasure of reading. And if we do so, our reward is the discovery of the many hidden layers within these works that do not merely reflect reality but reveal a spectrum of truths, thus intrinsically going against the grain of totalitarian mindsets. Azar Nafisi readingdiscoveryreality I'm a perfectly equipped failure. Azar Nafisi Art is as useful as bread. Azar Nafisi art-isbreadart The more we die, the stronger we will become Azar Nafisi strongerdies 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 lightrainmemories The novels were an escape from reality in the sense that we could marvel at their beauty and perfection. Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we felt so helplessly speechless. Azar Nafisi speechlessperfectionreality It takes courage to die for a cause, but also to live for one. Azar Nafisi tehrandiescauses 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. 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 painheartlying 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 wantgivingneeds In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter. Azar Nafisi betrayallyingart
