8 Quotes by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi

By using literature to expose the lie of love, its false pretense of unconditional generosity and kindness, I would be proving yet again that literature is the only magnanimous host in this piddling universe.

I, Zebra, am recrossing borders I have already crossed in order to map the literature of the void and prove once and for all that any thought worth preserving in our pitiable human record was manifested in the mind of an exile, an immigrant, a refugee"--my mind and mouth had aligned themselves to perfection--"persons fleeing from persecution, and/or otherwise homeless beings.

I felt nurtured by literature's web of sentences, connected through them to this strange and dark universe.

A love I was in no position to receive despite desperately needing it. No. Not I with my castaway, homeless body. Where would I store it? It would fall right through me, sink into the depths of my void. I would have needed so much love, more than any one person is capable of giving, to fill that gaping hole at the center of my life. And, besides his love had been capricious, inconsistent, flighty.

I have been pushed by the world into a state of psychic feudalism. and you want me to make myself vulnerable to you. How much vulnerability do you think one person can take? Do you want me to rip my skin off and stand in the wind, bleeding and raw?

I had been right to be wary of him. What could be more manipulative than to invade another with love?

Illiterates, abecedarians, elitists, rodents all—I will tell you this: I, Zebra, born Bibi Abbas Abbas Hosseini on a scorching August day in 1982, am a descendent of a long line of self-taught men who repeatedly abandoned their capital, Tehran, where blood has been washed with blood for a hundred years, to take refuge in Nowshaht, in the languid, damp regions of Mazandaran.

My dear Remedios, discomfort is a literary experience you have to learn to bear... Imagine how you will feel once you are standing in the center of the void. Terrible! That’s how! You have to build your endurance.