Art is as useful as bread.

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.

You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.

In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.

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

None of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.

There is little consolation in the fact that millions of people are unhappier than we are. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?