Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.
I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.
None of us can avoid being contaminated by the world’s evils; it’s all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.
The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.
I eat my heart out alone.
Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed to immutable.
You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn’t exist.
Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
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.
The existence of the writer is to write, and to write is to tell the truth.
Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels-the biggest sin is to be blind to others problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.
Poor reading, like poor writing, is imposing what you already know on texts. You should go into reading to discover, not to reaffirm what you know.
When I was teaching at the University of Tehran we were struggling against the implementation of the revolution rules.
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.
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.
What we search for in fiction is not so much reality, but the epiphany of truth.
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.
I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination.
My passion has always been books and literature, and teaching.
Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.