i could have told him to learn from Gatsby. from the lonely, isolated Gatsby, who also tried to retrieve his past and give flash and blood to a fancy, a dream that was never meant to be more than a dream.
Azar NafisiNone of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.
Azar NafisiA bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.
Azar NafisiWe do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for the pure, sensual, and unadulterated pleasure of reading. And if we do so, our reward is the discovery of the many hidden layers within these works that do not merely reflect reality but reveal a spectrum of truths, thus intrinsically going against the grain of totalitarian mindsets.
Azar Nafisi