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Quotes by Azar Nafisi

First of all, there are aspects of culture which are really reprehensible, and we should [all] fight against it. We shouldn't accept them. Second of all, women in Iran and in Saudi Arabia don't like to be stoned to death.
– Azar Nafisi
I would like to think of my own status as what you called 'citizen of the world' or a 'citizen of a portable world,' if not of the world.
– Azar Nafisi
Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
– Azar Nafisi
Many times I tell my American students my Iranian students understood how valuable [freedom] is because they had been deprived of it. Sometimes in the West we need to be reminded of the fact that blood has been paid for what we have.
– Azar Nafisi
Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.
– Azar Nafisi
Whenever religion, no matter where it comes from, when it claims to spread the word of God through [the] State it becomes dangerous.
– Azar Nafisi
You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.
– Azar Nafisi
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.
– Azar Nafisi
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
– Azar Nafisi
This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?
– Azar Nafisi
Religion was used as an ideology, as a system of control. When they forced the veil upon women, they were using it as an instrument of control in the same way that in Mao's China people were wearing Mao jackets and women were not supposed to wear any makeup.
– Azar Nafisi
Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.
– Azar Nafisi
I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.
– Azar Nafisi
Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.
– Azar Nafisi
America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?
– Azar Nafisi