Doris Mantley

“It's frightening to be free, to have to take responsibility for your decisions.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“The novels were an escape from reality in the sense that we could marvel at their beauty and perfection.

Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we felt so helplessly speechless.”
― azar nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“A novel is not an allegory, I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books