Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination.

When I was teaching at the University of Tehran we were struggling against the implementation of the revolution rules.

Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies.

With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem.

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.

A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.

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