Hooman Majd · 272 pages
Rating: (1.9K votes)
“It is perhaps because of the Iranian concept of the home and garden (and not the city or town it is in) as the defining center of life that Iranians find living in a society with such stringent rules of public behavior somewhat tolerable. Iranian society by and large cares very little about what goes on in the homes and gardens of private citizens, but the Islamic government cares very much how its citizens behave once they venture outside their walls.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“All business in Iran is like first time sex: first there are the promises, then a little foreplay, followed by more promises and perhaps a little petting...at that stage things get complicated - you're not sure who's the boy and who's the girl, but what you do know is that if you continue, you might get fucked...so you decide to proceed cautiously, touching here and touching there, showering the other party with compliments, and whispering an undying commitment, and then maybe, just maybe, it will all end in coitus, but it is rarely as satisfying for one party as it is for the other.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“If we cannot understand the depth of feeling in the Muslim world toward Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islam as a political force, then we will be doomed to failure in every encounter we have with the world.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“The last Shah's father, Reza Shah, made the chador for women and the turban for men illegal in the mid 1930's...In the 1930's women had their chadors forcibly removed from their heads if they dared wear them and were sometimes beaten as well if they resisted.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“He had undoubtedly not availed himself of the ministry archives, archives that might have revealed to him that Iranian diplomats in Paris, from this, his own Foreign Ministry, had taken it upon themselves to issue Iranian passports to Jews escaping the very Holocaust they were aware of, but that he now denied.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“Some people he said, think that freedom means men being able to wear shorts or women to go about without the hijab. Others think that freedom means having a full belly.”
― Hooman Majd, quote from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
“On the way, a great many demanded it, read it, and passed on. Those having the air and appearance of gentlemen, whose dress indicated the possession of wealth, frequently took no notice of me whatever; but a shabby fellow, an unmistakable loafer, never failed to hail me, and to scrutinize and examine me in the most thorough manner. Catching runaways is sometimes a money-making business.”
― Solomon Northup, quote from Twelve Years a Slave
“I don’t think humanity is noble,” I said. “Not in the least. It’s not just or fair on an intrinsic level. It’s not even good. But I kind of hoped we’d go out fighting the other guy.”
― quote from Worm
“...as if Hollywood were the name of the enchanted forest where you loose yourself and find yourself, again; the wood that changes you; the wood where you go mad; the wood where the shadows life longer than you do.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“I want all kinds of strangers to love me. The Indian horses screamed.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from Reservation Blues
“Where am I?" mumbled Luz.
"You're tied up in a homicidal smuggler's haunted mansion," I informed her.
"I remember now. My mom's going to be pissed.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from The Empress's Tomb
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