Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

by Azar Nafisi

We were, to borrow from Nabokov, to experience how the ordinary pebble of ordinary life could be transformed into a jewel through the magic eye of fiction.

This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world.

This is how memories invade me, abruptly and unexpectedly: drenched, I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.

A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic—not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so.

“We must for dear life make our own counter-realities.”

It takes courage to die for a cause, but also to live for one.

“The first thing you should do to test your compatibility,” said Nassrin, “is dance with him.”

To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared?