If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat.
I told them this novel was an American classic, in many ways the quintessential American novel. There were other contenders: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter. Some cit...
I say then, as now because the revolution that imposed the scarf on others did not relieve Mahshid of her loneliness. Before the revolution, she could in a sense take pride in her isolation. At that t...
How could God be so cruel as to create a Muslim woman with so much flesh and so little sex appeal?
Experience had proven that the only way these regulations would be heeded was if they were implemented by force.
Einstein was articulate and well-read, a lover of classical music, and it was he who said, I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Kn...
Education's goal is to impart knowledge, and knowledge is not only heretical, but unpredictable and often uncomfortable.
At that time, she had worn the scarf as a testament to her faith. Her decision was a voluntary act. When the revolution forced the scarf on others, her action became meaningless.
All violence is based on blindness, on a lack of reflection and empathy.
After all, it takes two to create a relationship, and when you make half the population invisible, the other half suffers as well.
Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account.
With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem.
We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half e...
We in ancient countries have our past—we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future.
Un romanzo non è un'allegoria, è l'esperienza sensoriale di un altro mondo. Se non entrate in quel mondo, se non trattenete il respiro insieme ai personaggi, se non vi lasciate coinvolgere nel loro de...
These students of mine, like the rest of their generation, were different from mine in one fundamental aspect. My generation complained of a loss, the void in our lives that was created when our past...
These are people who consciously choose failure in order to preserve their own sense of integrity. They are more elitist than mere snobs, because of their high standards.
There was something, both in fiction and in his life (Nabokov), that we instinctively related to and grasped, the possibility of a boundless freedom when all options are taken away.I could invent viol...
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...
The class's favoritebook was Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. In this novel, Nabokov differentiates Cincinnatus C., his imaginative and lonely hero, from those around him through hisoriginality in...