Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams. — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
What we search for in fiction is not so much reality, but the epiphany of truth. — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
The biggest crime in Nabokov's 'Lolita' is imposing your own dream upon someone else's reality. Humbert Humbert is blind. He doesn't see… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life;… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
The novels were an escape from reality in the sense that we could marvel at their beauty and perfection. Curiously, the novels… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
Visa for Avalon is a testament to the power of fiction. It illuminates the truth at the heart of what is commonly… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“I was reminded of a painter friend who had started her career by depicting scenes from life, mainly deserted rooms, abandoned houses… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
We do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“A novel is not an allegory...it is a sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination.… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“Hope for some means its loss for others; when the hopeless regain some hope, those in power--the ones who had taken it away--become afraid,… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
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… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“Such an act [testifying for an accused prison guard of the Shah's regime] can only be accomplished by someone who is engrossed in literature,… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
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… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“That first day I asked my students what they thought fiction should accomplish, why one should bother to read fiction at all. It was… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“you cannot just be stubborn against something, you need to be stubborn for something as well” — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
Visa for Avalon is a testament to the power of fiction. It illuminates the truth at the heart of what is commonly called reality.… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“You ask me what it means to be irrelevant? The feeling is akin to visiting your old house as a wandering ghost with unfinished… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
“We envy people like you, and we want to be you; we can't, so we destroy you.” — Azar Nafisi Copy Share
