Lois Pryce > Quotes

“My ignorance about the quotidian aspects of Iranian life was unsettling in one sense but in another way it was refreshing not to have textbook images or holiday brochure promo material to raise expectations – and the inevitable disappointment when it didn’t materialise. It made me realise, even in our world of information overload, how little of daily Iranian life is known outside its borders, and how rare it is to be able to arrive in a country with the sensation of an utterly blank canvas waiting to be filled.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“As Freya Stark herself had put it: ‘To be treated with consideration is, in the case of female travellers, too often synonymous with being prevented from doing what one wants.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“Sometimes I imagine meeting the guy who designs raingear that can be neither donned nor doffed when wet. We both roll up at a gas station at about the same time. Of course, it’s raining. When I figure out what he does for a job, rain gear designer, or whatever, I stop him right there by holding up an index finger. “Just wait a minute,” I say. Then I struggle to remove a waterlogged glove, shaking my head and laughing a bit because I know what’s coming next. Holding the glove by the cuff, I soggy-slap him in the face. “That’s a sloggy!” I’d say (trademark), and I’d deliver it on behalf of us all.”
― Lois Pryce, Motorcycle Messengers: Tales from the Road by Writers Who Ride

“Mr Yazdani had made a big deal about me removing any Islamic-imposed clothing as soon as the door had shut behind us, insisting that my headscarf and manteau were exchanged for loose-flowing hair and a T-shirt. He didn’t say as much, but I sensed this was not merely a desire to make his guest comfortable but also his own quiet way of showing me his opinion of the regime. As a fifty-something war veteran, with his reserved, old-school demeanour he seemed an unlikely spokesman for women’s rights, but he talked with great pride about Sara’s career and studies and, as ever, I was reminded how it was impossible to pigeonhole any of the Iranians I had met. Whenever you thought you had a handle on them, they came out with an unexpected opinion, thought or statement. It was one of the most intriguing elements of my journey; I never quite knew what was going to happen next.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“Hafez seemed to have the effect of unifying the Iranian people. His poems epitomised the Iranian mindset; passionate and opinionated but laced with humour and a lust for life. His moral and religious messages had elevated him to oracle status, but they sat comfortably alongside admissions of human frailty and decadence, including plentiful references to desire, wine and drunkenness. And just like the twenty-first-century Iranians I had met, from tech-savvy young guns to devout traditionalists, Hafez’s world was a harmonious blend of the mystical and the human, as if no conflict existed between the two.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“The great and only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I stared at his face, looking into his eyes, feeling the full force of his loathing; his entire demeanour and tone emanated disgust, disgust at me and everything I represented. He despised me. It occurred to me that I felt exactly the same about him. If this trip was supposed to be an exercise in cultural understanding, of open-mindedness and trying to see the world from another’s viewpoint, then right now I was failing. But I didn’t care. Until now I had kept quiet, remained calm and purposely not engaged with the situation. But now I felt a shift inside me, a physical sensation of something rising up, boiling over. Ha! Mr Basiji, I didn’t grow up in 1980s anarcho Bristol for nothing! My anti-establishment blood runs deep. An ingrained, lifelong mistrust of authority and hatred of bullies in uniform found its way to the surface right there on the baking streets of Tehran. I could not have stopped myself if I tried. And I didn’t want to. So I looked him in the eye and told him to fuck off.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“I realised then, sitting silent and alone in the wilderness, that it wasn’t just the traffic, noise and pollution of the cities and highways that I’d found wearing, it was also the sensation of being constantly on display, even if the attention I attracted was almost always well-meaning. Iran is a country of, and for, extroverts,”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I could see that between the two regimes, the Pahlavis must now seem infinitely preferable to the reality of the Islamic Republic. If oppression is a dish that must be served with a side order, then let it be glamour and excess rather than religion and hypocrisy.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I was ashamed to find myself contemplating that for the traveller, Iran’s charms lay in its isolation. This was not a mindset I liked, or approved of; I didn’t want to be like the smug backpackers in The Beach, trying to keep their special place a secret. I wanted the Iranian people to reap all the benefits from engaging with the world and for the rest of us to wake up to the reality that Iran is not a nation of desert-dwelling terrorists.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“To be treated with consideration is, in the case of female travellers, too often synonymous with being prevented from doing what one wants.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“as Khomeini and Khamenei appeared again at the exit, I wondered how long it would take for me to get used to these two men seemingly monitoring my every move. I had travelled in many other countries where leaders ensured they loomed large in daily life, but I had never witnessed a cult of personality employed on this scale. I found the ayatollahs’ constant presence intimidating and sinister, but I guessed that soon they would meld into the background and merely become part of the everyday fabric of life in Iran. This, of course, was the desired effect and, in its way, an even more chilling thought.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“Yes, yes, our countries are going to be friends, at last!’ I didn’t bother pointing out the minor detail that Obama wasn’t my president. It didn’t seem important. American, British, whatever. Great Satan, Little Satan, we had all been merged into one by the Islamic Republic’s propaganda machine. No different from how Persians and Arabs are all one and the same in many western minds, I supposed.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I sat at the kitchen table, next to their youngest son, eleven-year-old Amir, chirpy, polite and fluent in English, who was busy alternating between his maths homework and sketching the fascinations of a contemporary Iranian boy: luxury sports cars, the BMW roundel and masked gun-toting terrorists. ‘These are the speciality of Yazd,’ said Sara. For a moment I thought she was referring to her son’s artwork, but was relieved to find her presenting us with a plate of tiny decorated sweets and pastries.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I am ashamed to say that despite my conscious mind taking an open-minded approach to this journey, my subconscious had prepared for the worst. When I had turned up at the border I had been bracing myself for all the horrors as predicted by the doom-mongers back home. I was steeled for the onslaught of angry Islamists who would shun me (or worse) for being British/western/an infidel/female – take your pick. But instead I had been hit with a tidal wave of warmth and humanity to a degree that I have never experienced anywhere else in the world.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“it wasn’t the only aspect of Iran that reminded me of America. The two countries had far more similarities than either would care to admit; both maligned and misunderstood, tarnished in the eyes of the world by a minority of religious fundamentalists and obstreperous politicians, but in truth, populated by generous, hospitable people, endlessly innovative and industrious with a truly astounding capacity for vast portions of food. The meth-cooking drug labs of their respective deserts were another more recent and unfortunate similarity. Shishe had come late to Iran, in the last decade, but was ripping through the country, overtaking heroin as the drug of choice among disaffected youth and even upper-class women looking for a quick weight-loss plan.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“The two of us with our scrappy motor and no idea what was going to happen next, a Persian version of the Blues Brothers scene – there’s 106 miles to Qom, we’ve got a full tank of benzin, half a pack of pistachios, it’s sunny out, and I’m wearing a hijab. Bezan berim!”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“Legend had it that this cult had acquired their name from their ruthless leader’s tactic of getting his followers stoned before encouraging them to murder top political and religious leaders with trippy, weed-induced promises of a paradise full of nubile young maidens in exotic gardens. These bloodthirsty stoners lapped it up and soon became known as the Hashish-iyun, named after their drug of choice, and giving root to the English word, assassin.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“She smiled a lot, laughed easily and listened intently when others spoke. She had been battling the system her whole life, but it had not made her bitter. To me she was the epitome of the modern Iranian woman – a generous heart and an inner core of indefatigable strength.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“The garden layout, the design and proportions of the pavilion, the ingenious bâdgir, all of it was a triumph of Persian ingenuity, but I couldn’t help look at the beauty around me and be bewildered by the contrast not just to the chaotic scenes of Iran’s street life and its homicidal highways, but also to the brutality meted out by the people in charge of this nation over the centuries. How could a people who are capable of inventing and creating to this level of perfection also be responsible for so much cruelty and carelessness? I was standing in one of the most exquisitely designed places I had ever seen, in a country that pollutes its air to lethal levels, litters its countryside, crushes artistic endeavours and executes more people than almost anywhere else in the world. It was as though there was no middle ground; both ends of the spectrum of the human condition represented, both taken to the extreme.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“Much of the revulsion and anger the Iranian people had felt towards the Shah’s reign was fuelled by the brutal tactics of his secret police force, SAVAK – comparable to East Germany’s Stasi – who routinely tortured and executed his opponents. Political dissidents, trade unionists and communists were targeted and demonstrators protesting against the Shah’s lavish lifestyle were killed in the streets. But what had really changed with the revolution? Khomeini had whipped up a storm with all the rhetoric of a people’s revolution, but as soon as power was seized and the Islamic Republic created, he quickly set about creating his very own brutal security services – the all-powerful Revolutionary Guards, and beneath them, the shadowy Basij, who were regarded as thuggish mercenaries doing the bidding of the ayatollahs. For the people of Iran, a new era of fear and intimidation had replaced the previous one, just with new uniforms, no neckties and more facial hair.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I’d noticed that in Britain and America the word Persian is generally used for the ‘nice’ things: Persian carpets, Persian food and restaurants, poetry and art, that kind of thing. But when it comes to talking about politics, and say, the nuclear programme or human rights, anything that the western media considers intimidating or distasteful, then it’s ‘Iran’ and ‘Iranian’.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“Khomeini and Khamenei were everywhere; on giant billboards at the roadside, as vast lurid murals on concrete apartment blocks and, less impressively, on sagging vinyl banners outside schools and mosques. With their almost identical appearance and surnames they reminded me of an Islamic Thomson and Thompson, the hapless detectives of the Tintin books. But that, I feared, was where the similarity ended.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I took a cab into the centre of town and listened to the driver’s running commentary on all that ailed his beloved city, on the good old days when he could have a beer and a dance, and how he had escaped to America to study engineering but couldn’t afford the university fees and was forced to return home after a year. ‘Now, drive taxi in Tehran. No beer. No fun.’ He shrugged, resigned to his fate. After about twenty minutes, once his English vocabulary had been depleted, his analysis of Tehran’s problems was distilled down to two descriptions as he pointed at buildings in turn as we passed by. ‘Reza Shah!’ he would shout triumphantly at anything remotely grand or old. ‘Islamic Republic!’ he spat at each shoddy concrete office block.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to classify anyone in Iran, and herein lay its fascination.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“After the revolution most of the major roads in the cities, especially in Tehran, had been renamed with the appropriate amount of anti-western fervour, changing the likes of Eisenhower Avenue to Azadi Avenue (meaning ‘freedom’ in Persian) and Shah Reza Square to Enqelab Square (the Persian word for ‘revolution’). My map recce also showed up a liking for using street names to show allegiance to Iran’s friends and allies, such as the ubiquitous Felestin – Palestine – which cropped up in many Iranian cities. There were more pointed allegiances too; the street that housed the British Embassy, Winston Churchill Street, had been renamed in typically cheeky Iranian fashion as Bobby Sands Street (it was transliterated as ‘Babisands’), in tribute to the IRA hunger striker. In 1981 the embassy had been forced to move their official entrance to a side street so as to avoid the embarrassment of having Sands’ name on their headed notepaper.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“Thirty-five years of intimidating and dreary Islamic rule had created a rose-tinted view of the pre-revolutionary era. The arrests, the intimidation, the decadence of the elite, the horrors of SAVAK; it had all been forgotten, replaced by a revised, romantic version of the good old days. Among Iranians of a certain age and class, the swinging sixties and seventies are recalled with a poetic yearning nostalgia; an era of mini-skirts, freedom and hedonism. ‘I haven’t had a glass of wine since 1979,’ one man had told me at a petrol station in Qazvin; ‘I miss the 1970s,’ he had added with a mournful, faraway look.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran

“As two former empires, both with distinct identities and a strong sense of national pride, there is an island mentality in Iran that feels strangely familiar, a perverse pleasure to be found in going it alone, not being bossed around. Neither nation is particularly comfortable with the idea of mucking in with its neighbours – Britain with its scepticism towards Europe and inflated sense of importance in the world; Iran, an island of Shi-ite Muslims surrounded by Sunnis, geographically in the Middle East but definitely not Arabs – always, defiantly, neither East nor West. But there were gentler similarities too; an appreciation of the absurd and a sense of humour that celebrates the subversive and the silly, a love of the outdoors and an illustrious history of mountaineering and climbing, the national penchant for picnics and a profound appreciation of nature. Even the strange formalised politeness of ta’arof reminded me of our own British rituals of insistence and refusal when passing through a doorway or our habit of apologising when bumped into by a stranger. And, of course, our mutual inability to do anything without a cup of tea.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“It wasn’t about being brave, or toughing it out, or any of that air-punching motivational language; all that was required in these moments was to keep plodding on, quietly, resolutely, without fuss or drama.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran

“The fabled mind-broadening power of travel is usually a gradual affair, something that creeps up on you the more you put yourself out in the world, but in Iran it was a sledgehammer effect. I found myself rethinking, recalibrating just about everything every minute of the day. It was like being whacked in the face with my own prejudices and misconceptions at every turn; but it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, it was thrilling.”
― Lois Pryce, Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran