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Quotes by Iranian Authors
"I think wow, I imagine this is what it's like to have friends."
"We don't have a major problem right now in our country, and life is normal. Things like unemployment, which the youth are suffering from, and the rate of inflation - these are chronic conditions and we have to solve them."
"I'm a starving child trying to stuff my stomach, gorging my senses on the decadence of these moments as if I'll wake up in the morning and realize I'm still sweeping cinders for my stepmother.But then Adam's lips press against my head and my worries put on a fancy dress and pretend to be something else for a while."
"So,' he says. 'When's the big day? Have you set a date yet?''What?' I startle. 'For what?''For the day you're going to stop being such a dumbass,' he says shooting me a sharp look.'Oh.' I cringe. Kick at the air. 'Yeah, that'll probably never happen.''Yeah, you're probably right.''Shut up."
"If the invaders reach Iran, the country will turn into a burning hell for them."
"Let me tell you quite bluntly that this king business has given me personally nothing but headaches."
"I couldn't have dreamed you into existence because I didn't even know I needed you. You must have been sent to me."
"Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed, overindulgence, and gluttony had to be expunged from human behavior. The solution was in self-control, in minimalism, in sparse living conditions; one simple and a brand-new dictionary filled with words everyone would understand."
"Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in."
"Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves."
"Juliette ? A tentative voice . " Are you okay? I lower the pillow . Blink up . Warner is wearing a towel . A towel . I want to roll under the bed ."
"Uh, yeah - how about a warm hell no to that request? Does that work for you? Because it works for me."
"The United States' administrations... must recognize that Iran is a big power. Having said that, we consider ourselves to be a human force and a cultural power and hence a friend of other nations. We have never sought to dominate others or to violate the rights of any other country."
"Why this candle?Why this cake?The day of my birth is not today.I was born when you said, 'Hey."
"Kenji snorts."That's because you're not fragile, Kenji says. "If anything, everyone needs to protect themselves from you. You're like a freaking beast, he says. Then adds, "I mean, you know-like, a cute beast. A little beast that tears shit up and breaks the earth and sucks the life out of people."
"This planet is a broken bone that didn't set right, a hundred pieces of crystal glued together. We've been shattered and reconstructed, told to make an effort every single day to pretend we still function the way we're supposed to. But it's a lie, it's all a lie."
"The greatest moments in our lives occur when we surrender: birth, love, and death."
"He's looking at the wall and at the floor and at the bedsheets and at the way his knuckles look when he clenches his fist but no not at me he won't look at me and his next words are so, so soft. "Because they're dead, love. They're all dead."
"My thoughts, I think, will soon be sound.My mind, I hope, will soon be found."
"I can't be my own person, if i constantly require someone else to hold me together."
"You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist."
"Kengi?""Yeah?"I take a deep breath. Try to count the stars. "What am I going to do?""About what?"I hesitate. "About everything."Kenji makes a strange sound. "Shit if I know.""I don't want to do this without you," I whisper.He leans back. "Who said you're going to do anything without me?"My heart skips a few beats. I stare at him."What?" he asks. Raises his eyebrows. "You're surprised?""You'll fight with me?" I ask him, hardly breathing. "Fight back with me? Even if it's with Warner?"Kenji smiles. Looks up at the sky. "Hell yeah," he says. "Really?""I'm here for you, kid. That's what friends are for."
"Dear, sweet, beautiful girl."
"You will not be alone, I say to them, spinning to see their faces. You don't need to be afraid anymore. We want to take back our world. We want to save the lives of our family members, our friends. We want your children to have a chance at a better future. And we want to fight. We want to win. I lock eyes with them. And we are asking for your help."
"I can do anything I want. Be with anyone I want. And it'll be my choice."
"Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one."
"1,320 seconds walk into the room before he does."
"It's strange. How hollow i feel. Like there might be echoes inside of me. Like I'm one of those chocolate rabbits they used to sell around Easter, the ones that were nothing more than a sweet shell encapsulating a world of nothing. I'm like that. I encapsulate a world of nothing."
"For so many years I lived in constant terror of myself. Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me, bowing my will to its whispers until I was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too terrified to disagree. I had been shackled, a prisoner in my own mind.But finally, finally, I have learned to break free."
"The question in their minds was, why did the outside world, and particularly the Western world, produce all these landmines, and send them to Afghanistan? This business must be stopped. It's a dirty business to produce such a horrible device."
"Because something inside of my heart is ripping apart and it feels like fear, it tastes like panic and anxiety and desperation and I don't know how to understand th image in front of me. I don't want to see Warner like this. I don't want to think of him as anything other than a monster.This isn't right."
"So that's it?" Kenji says. "You just like him for his personality, huh?""What?""All of this," Kenji says, waving a hand in the air, "has nothing to do with him being all sexy and shit and him being able to touch you all the time?""You think Warner is sexy?""That is not what I said."
"We write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are."
"Because even if you spend your life chasing the immaterial, listening to the most exquisite classical music and getting drunk off of stunning vistas of mountains and waterfalls, all of it isn't worth a dime if you aren't sharing it with someone. Everything amounts to that. True, we must experience most things in solitude to grow, create, destroy and grow again, but our pleasure and joy reaches a threshold in isolation. It is the worst thing to become an island. One must become the whole world."
"First! Does this need to be said? Second! Does this need to be said by me? And third! Does this need to be said by me right now?"
"I love you," I whisper. "I love you exactly as you are."
"I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me."
"They filled our world with weapons aimed at foreheads and smiled as they shot 16 candles right through our future. They killed those strong enough to fight back and locked up the freaks who failed to live up to their utopian expectations."
"No American soldier should be allowed to set foot on Iranian soil, regardless of the criticism we have of the Iranian government."
"The Sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us. The Moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It's always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Everyday it's a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of life. The Moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections."
"Mother often said that she could never be bothered to understand why Alice did the things she did, and now, more than ever, Alice thought never being bothered was a very lazy way to love someone."
"I peek up at his features, at the crooked grin i want to savor, at the color in his eyes i'd use to paint a million pictures."
"Maybe I was crazy to consider it, but I'd always hoped that if I were a good enough girl, if I did everything right, if I said the right things or said nothing at all-I thought my parents would change their minds. I thought they would finally listen when I tried to talk. I thought they would give me a chance. I thought they might finally love me. I always had that stupid hope."
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