from "Reading Lolita in Tehran"

"Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form." - Nabokov

"The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes." - Azar Nafisi

"Art is no longer snobbish or cowardly. It teaches peasants to use tractors, gives lyrics to young soldiers, designs textiles for factory women's dresses, writes burlesque for factory theatres, does a hundred other useful tasks. Arts is useful as bread." - Mike Gold

"This is how you inhale a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing." - Azar Nafisi

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Nietzsche

"Indeed we live in dark ages, where to speak of trees is a sort of crime...Alas, we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves." - paraphrase of Bertolt Brecht

"The first lesson in fighting tyranny is to do your own thing and satisfy your own conscience." - Azar Nafisi