239 Quotes by Azar Nafisi

When I first left Iran at the age of 13, Iran had become such a shining star – it was the point to which all my desires and dreams returned.

Love is love, but there are so many ways of articulating it.

I once heard my father tell a friend that his relationship with my mother reminded him of a story by Attar, the twelfth-century Persian mystic poet, about a man who fearlessly rode a ferocious lion. When the narrator followed this brave man to his home, he was shocked to see how easily he was cowed by his wife. How could a man who was not afraid of a fierce beast be so intimidated by his own wife? His host shot back: If it weren’t for what happens at home I could never ride a lion.

Teaching is a funny business; you want to share these glimpses of something real and profound, but half the time students want only to know their next assignment and what they will need to study for the test.

It is not accidental that the most unsympathetic characters in Austen’s novels are those who are incapable of genuine dialogue with others. They rant. They lecture. They scold. This incapacity for true dialogue implies an incapacity for tolerance, self-reflection and empathy.

In fiction, every treachery and setback appears to serve some end: the characters learn and grow and come into their own. In life, it is not always clear that the hijacking of our plans is quite so provident or benign.

How do you tell someone she has to learn to love herself and her own body before she can be loved or love?

Most people have a way of radiating their potential – not just what they are, but what they could become.

The price one pays when choosing exile is the loss of all that defines you as an individual. The only thing that makes this immense loss tolerable is the discovery of a self you did not know existed – of a true independence. That is the real gift of America, not its fabled wealth and prosperity.