A Bad Author Can Take The Most

The Revolution Taught Me Not To Be Consoled By Other People's Miseries, Not To Feel Thankful Because So Many Others Had Suffered More. Pain And Loss, Like Love And Joy, Are Unique And Personal; They Cannot Be Modified By Comparison To Others.

A Novel Is Not An Allegory.... 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.

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 Existed, Because We Could Not Imaginatively Realize Ourselves And Communicate To The World, Because We Had Used Works Of Imagination To Serve As Handmaidens To Some Political Ploy.

I Finally Returned To Iran In 1979, When I Got My Degree In English And American Literature, And Stayed For 18 Years In The Islamic Republic.

When I Walked Down The Streets, I Asked Myself, Are These My People?, Is This My Hometown, Am I Who I Am?