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 More Quotes by Azar Nafisi More Quotes From Azar Nafisi You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist. Azar Nafisi imagination order needs Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested. Azar Nafisi iran government people After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities. Azar Nafisi islamic iran america I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain. Azar Nafisi path rain memories Every great work of art ... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. Azar Nafisi infidelity betrayal art The revolution taught me not to be consoled by other people's miseries, not to feel thankful because so many others had suffered more. Pain and loss, like love and joy, are unique and personal; they cannot be modified by comparison to others. Azar Nafisi pain unique loss i could have told him to learn from Gatsby. from the lonely, isolated Gatsby, who also tried to retrieve his past and give flash and blood to a fancy, a dream that was never meant to be more than a dream. Azar Nafisi lonely dream past 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 evil attitude world 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 giving-up pain children A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue. Azar Nafisi issues want thinking America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry? Azar Nafisi poetic-license vision america For more than 30 years the Islamic regime and its apologists have tried to dismiss women's struggle in Iran as part of a western ploy. Azar Nafisi islamic iran struggle 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 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 soul america people I think Islam is in a sense, in crisis. It needs to question and re-question itself. Azar Nafisi islam needs thinking 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 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 age people 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 Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. Azar Nafisi fairy-tale limits reality With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem. Azar Nafisi self-esteem matter lying
