I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you. In one way or another we articulate what has happened to us through the kind of people we become.

Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.

Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.

You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.

Khatami is a symptom and not the cause of change in Iran.

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.

Art is as useful as bread.