Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
Azar NafisiRead
Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fiction should be appreciated for its imaginative qualities rather than forced to mimic reality.
In this quote, Azar Nafisi emphasizes the unique value of fiction as a medium that transcends mere reality. Instead of trying to replicate the real world, fiction serves to illuminate deeper truths and insights about the human experience, allowing readers to explore emotions, ideas, and revelations that might not be accessible through everyday life.
Themes
FictionTruthImaginationRealityLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
This quote would resonate well at a book club discussing the importance of imaginative storytelling.
More from Azar Nafisi
All quotes βAfter the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities.
Azar NafisiRead
The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.
Azar NafisiRead
I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?
Azar NafisiRead
I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.
Azar NafisiRead
It takes courage to die for a cause, but also to live for one.
Azar NafisiRead
Similar quotes
Faulkner is a writer who has had much to do with my soul, but Hemingway is the one who had the most to do with my craft - not simply for his books, but for his astounding knowledge of the aspect of craftsmanship in the science of writing.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
Jiro Ono serves Edo-style traditional sushi, the same 20 or 30 pieces he's been making his whole life, and he's still unsatisfied with the quality and every day wakes up and trains to make the best. And that is as close to a religious experience in food as one is likely to get.
Anthony BourdainRead
Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease.
Jerry SaltzRead
Through performance, I found the possibility of establishing a dialogue with the audience through an exchange of energy, which tended to transform the energy itself. I could not produce a single work without the presence of the audience, because the audience gave me the energy to be able, through a specific action, to assimilate it and return it, to create a genuine field of energy.
Marina AbramovicRead
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
A. S. ByattRead
The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.
Maeve BinchyRead