When I first left Iran at the age of 13, Iran had become such a shining star - it was the point to which all my desires and dreams returned.

Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.

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

Only curiosity about the fate of others, the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the will to enter their world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of recognition. Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.

Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed to immutable.

She was one of those people who are irrevocably, incurably honest and therefore both inflexible and vulnerable at the same time.

The revolution taught me not to be consoled by other people's miseries, not to feel thankful because so many others had suffered more. Pain and loss, like love and joy, are unique and personal; they cannot be modified by comparison to others.