top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Iranian Authors
"We coin concepts and we use them to analyse and explain nature and society. But we seem to forget, midway, that these concepts are our own constructs and start equating them with reality."
"Art doesn't give rise to anything in us that isn't already there. It simply stirs our curious consciousness and sparks a fire that illuminates who we have always wanted to be."
"Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in."
"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."
"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 ."
"She'd decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong and she would be weak, and both would be okay."
"You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist."
"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."
"Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch."
"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."
"The afternoon our story begins, the quiet parts of being alive were the busiest: wind unlocking Windows; rainlight nudging curtains apart; fresh-cut grass tickling unsocked feet. Days like this made Alice want to set off on a great adventure."
"Like the cotton-carder who combs tangled cotton into a long bundle of fibre, you take all my knotted fragments and comb them into light."
"Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji?" me?"
"If the invaders reach Iran, the country will turn into a burning hell for them."
"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."
"No American soldier should be allowed to set foot on Iranian soil, regardless of the criticism we have of the Iranian government."
"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."
"Alice couldn't explain why, exactly, but she knew now that things had changed between them. Oliver had become her friend in an absolute, uncomplicated way. She was done fighting him, and he was done lying to her."
"I want you to be happy," I tell him, my eyes searching his. 'I want you to have a family. I want you to be surronded by people who care about you," I say. 'You deserve that."
"A tired starving dog so thin and frail it looks like it could be knocked over by the wind. But it's staring at me. Unafraid. Mouth opened. Tongue lolling. I want to laugh out loud. I glanced around quickly before scooping the dog into my arms. I don't need to give my father anymore reasons to castrate me, and I don't trust my soldiers not to report something like this. That I would play with the dog."
"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'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."
"I can do anything I want. Be with anyone I want. And it'll be my choice."
"He's wrong he's so he's so wrong he's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow."
"I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me."
"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."
"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."
"Warner. A white bird with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. A fair - skinned boy with gold hair, the leader of Sector 45. It was always him. All along . The link."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Alice jumped from flagstone to flagstone, her face caught in the rainlight glow, her hand grasping for a touch of gold. The towns excitement was contagious, and the air was so thick with promise Alice could almost bite into it."
"And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing and not breathing and hearts beating between us and he's so close, he's so close and I can't feel my legs anymore. I can't feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere, filling everything and he whispers"Please."He says, "Please don't shoot me for this."
"I can't be my own person, if i constantly require someone else to hold me together."
"Please," he says. "I'm begging you to stop."I still. "I can't stomach your pain," he says. "I can feel it so strongly and it's making me crazy- please," he says to me. "Don't be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. You've done nothing wrong." "I'm sorry-""Don't be sorry, either," he says. "God, the only reason I'm not going to kill Kent for this is because I know it would only upset you more."
"The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people."
"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?"
bottom of page