Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
Azar NafisiRead
A novel is not moral in the usual sense of the word. It can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A novel challenges our beliefs, prompting self-reflection rather than adhering to traditional notions of morality.
This quote by Azar Nafisi highlights the profound impact literature can have on our understanding of morality. Rather than simply teaching a moral lesson, a novel has the power to disturb our complacency and make us question our own beliefs and the absolutes we hold. It suggests that the true purpose of a novel is to provoke thought and introspection, pushing us to confront the complexities of our convictions.
Themes
NovelMoralityLiteratureBeliefsSelf-ReflectionIntrospection
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the impact of literature in a book club.
More from Azar Nafisi
All quotes →After 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
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine... But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine.
Jane AustenRead
Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.
Toni MorrisonRead
Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they're not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened.
Salman RushdieRead
People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity. Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves.
Ruskin BondRead
I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large.
Kenzaburo OeRead
Chapter One. The Bride." He held up the book then. "I'm reading it to you for relax." He practically shoved the book in my face. "By S. Morgenstern. Great Florinese writer. The Princess Bride. He too came to America. S. Morgenstern. Dead now in New York. The English is his own. He spoke eight tongues." Here my father put down the book and held up all his fingers. "Eight. Once in Florin City...
William GoldmanRead