Quotes by Azar Nafisi - Page 1

Well, that was in 1995 when I resigned from my last academic job.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Academic
Resigned
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You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Future
Imagination
Imagine
Order
Exist
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Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Exile
Lots
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America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Loses
Poetic
Vision
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I think Islam is in a sense, in crisis. It needs to question and re-question itself.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Crisis
Islam
Question
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Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Iran
People More Something
Forbid
Unfortunately
Governments
Something People
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A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Author
Moral Issue
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Thus the regime has deprived Iranian women not just of their present rights, but also of their history and their past.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Deprived
Iranian
Rights
Present
Regime
Thus
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Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Atrocities
Innocent
Protect
Silent
Inevitably
Leads
Remain
Urge
We Cannot
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When I was teaching at the University of Tehran we were struggling against the implementation of the revolution rules.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Implementation
Revolution
Tehran
University
Struggling
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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 / Writer
Attitude
Evil
Matter
World
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The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Dream
Success
American Dream
Cost
Negative
People
Pursue
Vision
American
Any
Side
Destroys
Turn
Which
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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 / Writer
Iran
Islamic
Ploy
Struggle
Western
Dismiss
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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.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Iran
Desires
Returned
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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 / Writer
American Literature
Iran
Islamic
Literature
Republic
Degree
Finally
Islamic Republic
Returned
Stayed
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Every culture has something to be ashamed of, but every culture also has the right to change, to challenge negative traditions, and create to new ones.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Ashamed
Negative
Challenge
Create
New Ones
Traditions
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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 / Writer
America
Attention
Polarization
Soul
Superficiality
Talk
Paying
Undermine
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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 / Writer
Islamic
Nine
Republic
Resent
Islamic Republic
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The stories from Iran's present and past are reminders that freedom, democracy and human rights, or fundamentalism, fascism and terrorism are not geographically and culturally determined, but universal.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Determined
Fascism
Fundamentalism
Human Rights
Iran
Reminders
Terrorism
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The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if you don't compromise, you may suffer.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Dream
American Dream
Best Work
Compromise
Literature
Reality
Shows
Tainted
Best Work Great
American
Represent
Dreaming
Fitzgerald
Great Gatsby
Scott
Suffer
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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 / Writer
Criticism
Iran
Officials
Regard
In The Past
Iranian Regime
Justifying
Labeled
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Religion was used as an ideology, as a system of control. When they forced the veil upon women, they were using it as an instrument of control in the same way that in Mao's China people were wearing Mao jackets and women were not supposed to wear any makeup.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
China
Ideology
Jackets
Makeup
Forced
Wear
Instrument
Supposed
System
Using
Veil
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People would react to books by authors like James and Austen almost on a gut level. I think it was not so much the message, because the best authors do not have obvious messages. These authors were disturbing to my students because of their perspectives on life.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Austen
Disturbing
Messages
Obvious
Life Best People
Gut
James
Perspectives
React
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Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Evoke
Fundamentalism
Glory
Islamists
Long Time
Oppressed
Phenomenon
Purity
German
Time Religion Long
Mythological
Passions
Reach
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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 Lolita's reality. He doesn't see that Lolita should leave. He only sees Lolita as an extension of his own obsession. This is what a totalitarian state does.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Blind
Crime
Imposing
Obsession
Totalitarian State
Extension
Sees
Totalitarian
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Look at Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution and the slogans that they used: anti-imperialism; anti-colonialism; the struggle of the have-nots against the haves; the state monopoly over economy, which was very much patterned after the Soviet Union. All of these things did not come out of Islam. Islam is not that developed.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Islam
Monopoly
Revolution
Slogans
Soviet
Soviet Union
Struggle
Developed
Union
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Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Benign
Condescending
Iran
Majority
Monopoly
Dismiss
Intentions
Muslim
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This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Ancient
Iran
Islam
Sensual
Subversive
Time History Good
Centuries
Represent
Ethnic
Forced
Wearing
Practices
Underage
Veil
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What dazzles us in Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra are not the alluring mythologies about the evasive queen, but the astonishing if rare historical facts that Schiff has meticulously and lovingly excavated. Schiff offers not just Cleopatra's story but the story of an amazing era, one that has vanished but still affects us, questioning the way we look at myth, history, and ourselves.
Azar Nafisi / Writer
Queens
Historical
Looks
Stories
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Azar Nafisi Quotes - Page 1

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