Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested. — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
I finally returned to Iran in 1979, when I got my degree in English and American literature, and stayed for 18 years… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
When I first left Iran at the age of 13, Iran had become such a shining star - it was the point… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
The stories from Iran's present and past are reminders that freedom, democracy and human rights, or fundamentalism, fascism and terrorism are not… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“Whoever we were—and it was not really important what religion we belonged to, whether we wished to wear the veil or not,… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
For more than 30 years the Islamic regime and its apologists have tried to dismiss women's struggle in Iran as part of… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions,… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“A message was sent by the regime to the faithful: to survive they would have to be loyal to only one interpretation… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
In the past 30 years, officials of the Iranian regime and its apologists have labeled criticism, especially with regard to women's rights,… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“Those who are close to us, when they die, divide our world. There is the world of the living, which we finally,… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“you cannot just be stubborn against something, you need to be stubborn for something as well” — 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; what we… — 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 called reality.… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“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 Image
![“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, has learned that every individual has different dimensions to his personality… Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into…” quote by Azar Nafisi](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e57/azar-nafisi-2001_books_such-an-act-testifying-for-an-accused-pr_74846.jpg)
