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Quotes by Iranian Authors
"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."
"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."
"The greatest moments in our lives occur when we surrender: birth, love, and death."
"Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves."
"They can award me with the greatest accolades and reward me with the finest diamonds. They can name days and streets after me, canonise and celebrate me. They can make me the queen of their kingdom, the president of their nation. They can carry my picture in their wallets and whisper my name in their prayers but, tell me, what is all this worth if your voice isn't the one calling me home?"
"We have no problems with Jews and highly respect Judaism as a holy religion."
"Dear, sweet, beautiful girl."
"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."
"I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me."
"My thoughts, I think, will soon be sound.My mind, I hope, will soon be found."
"The vote, cast in a free atmosphere and with all inclinations and parties at present, was after all a vote to the Islamic Republic, to national independence, to the Constitution and to the Islamic causes."
"If the invaders reach Iran, the country will turn into a burning hell for them."
"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."
"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."
"Why this candle?Why this cake?The day of my birth is not today.I was born when you said, 'Hey."
"Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?"
"No American soldier should be allowed to set foot on Iranian soil, regardless of the criticism we have of the Iranian government."
"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."
"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."
"I think wow, I imagine this is what it's like to have friends."
"Each department and institution has its own authorities and responsibilities, and they act on that basis. It is wrong to even compare such actions to what is done in Guantanamo or elsewhere by the Americans. They do not stand on a high moral platform to preach to others."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"He's wrong he's so he's so wrong he's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I never thought it would get this bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily removable, easily destroyed for disobedience.We have lost our humanity."
"You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist."
"How strange that we can go from friends to inseparable to hateful then casual all in one lifetime."
"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 love you," I whisper. "I love you exactly as you are."
"I can do anything I want. Be with anyone I want. And it'll be my choice."
"1,320 seconds walk into the room before he does."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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?"
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