“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself:
Are my trousers long enough?
Is my veil in place?
Can my make-up be seen?
Are they going to whip me?
No longer asks herself:
Where is my freedom of thought?
Where is my freedom of speech?
My life, is it liveable?
What's going on in the political prisons?”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“We can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable. Once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“In every religion, you find the same extremists.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Anyway, that's how it is! Either they obey the law, or they're expelled!! And make sure they wear their veils correctly..." - "If hair is as stimulating as you say, then you need to shave your moustache!" My father actually said that.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“I rushed to the living room to protect myself from I don't know what, behind my best friend, a book.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“War always takes you by surprise.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Rule number six: Everybody should have a car
Rule number seven: All maids should eat at the table with the others
Rule number eight: No old person should have to suffer
Grandmother: In that case, I'll be your first disciple.
Persepolis: Really?
Grandmother: But tell me how you'll arrange for old people not to suffer?
Persepolis: It will simply be forbidden.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“People don't know anymore why we've had eight years of war. Why their children have died...This entire war was just a big setup to destroy both the Iranian and the Iraqi armies. The former was the most powerful in the Middle East in 1980, and the latter represented a real danger to Israel. The West sold weapons to both camps and we, we were stupid enough to enter into this cynical game...eight years of war for nothing! So now the state names streets after martyrs to flatter the families of the victims. In this way, perhaps, they'll find some meaning in all this absurdity.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“The Shah stayed on the throne until 1979, when he fled Iran to escape the Islamic revolution.
Since then, this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why writing "Persepolis" was so important to me. I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don't want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.
One can forgive but one should never forget.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“The Germans sell chemical weapons to Iran and Iraq. The wounded are then sent to Germany to be treated. Veritable human guinea pigs.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“I learned that you should always shout louder than your aggressor.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“I wanted to be an educated, liberated woman. And if the pursuit of knowledge meant getting cancer, so be it.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Despite the doctor’s orders, I bought myself several cartons of cigarettes (…) I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“En la vida encontrarás muchos imbéciles. Si te hieren, piensa que es su estupidez la que les empuja a hacerte daño. Así evitarás responder a su maldad. Porque no hay nada peor en el mundo que el rencor y la venganza... Mantén siempre tu dignidad, tu integridad y la fidelidad a ti misma (p.159)”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“cuando entré en su habitación estaba llorando... No pertenecíamos a la misma clase social, pero al menos estabamos en la misma cama”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Don't let it get to you, mom! The Western media also fights against us. That's where our reputation as fundamentalists and terrorists comes from."
"You're right. Between one's fanaticism and the other's disdain, it's hard to know which side to choose. Personally, I hate Saddam and I have no sympathy for the Kuwaitism but I hate just as much the cynicism of the allies who call themselves "liberators" while they're there for the oil."
"Exactly. Just look at Afghanistan! They fought there for ten years. There were 900,000 dead and today the country is still in chaos. No one lifted a finger! Because Afghanistan is poor! The worst is that the intervention in Kuwait is done in the name of the human rights! Which rights? Which humans?"
At the time, this kind of analysis wasn't commonplace. After our own war, we were happy that Iraq got itself attacked and delighted that it wasn't happening in our country. We were finally able to sleep peacefully without fear of missiles... We no longed needed to line up with our food ration coupon...the rest mattered little. And then, there wasn't any more opposition. The protesters had been executed. Or had fled the country any way possible. The regime had absolute power...and most people , in search of a cloud of happiness, had forgotten their political conscience.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“I wanted to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“El motivo de mi vergüenza y de la revolución es el mismo la diferencia de clase social”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Preferiría que estuviera vivo y encarcelado que muerto como un héroe”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Dans ta vie tu rencontreras beaucoup de cons. S'ils te blessent, dis-toi que c'est la bêtise qui les pousse à te faire du mal. Ça t'évitera de répondre à leur méchanceté. Car il n'y a rien de pire au monde que l'amertume et la vengeance. .. Reste toujours digne et intègre à toi même.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“They found records and video-cassettes at their place, a deck of cards, a chess set. In other words, everything that's banned.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“And so I was lost, without any bearings... what could be worse than that?”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Chouka era muy divertida. Por desgracia, cuando dos años más tarde se casó, su esposo le prohibió verme. Para él, yo era una persona amoral”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE LIVED BADLY”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“Guns may shoot and knives may carve, but we won't wear your silly scarves!”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
“With this first cigarette, I kissed childhood goodbye. Now I was a grown-up.”
― Marjane Satrapi, quote from The Complete Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi
Born place: in Rasht, Iran
Born date November 22, 1969
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“Their [girls] sexual energy, their evaluation of adolescent boys and other girls goes thwarted, deflected back upon the girls, unspoken, and their searching hungry gazed returned to their own bodies. The questions, Whom do I desire? Why? What will I do about it? are turned around: Would I desire myself? Why?...Why not? What can I do about it?
The books and films they see survey from the young boy's point of view his first touch of a girl's thighs, his first glimpse of her breasts. The girls sit listening, absorbing, their familiar breasts estranged as if they were not part of their bodies, their thighs crossed self-consciously, learning how to leave their bodies and watch them from the outside. Since their bodies are seen from the point of view of strangeness and desire, it is no wonder that what should be familiar, felt to be whole, become estranged and divided into parts. What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired. Girls learn to watch their sex along with the boys; that takes up the space that should be devoted to finding out about what they are wanting, and reading and writing about it, seeking it and getting it. Sex is held hostage by beauty and its ransom terms are engraved in girls' minds early and deeply with instruments more beautiful that those which advertisers or pornographers know how to use: literature, poetry, painting, and film.
This outside-in perspective on their own sexuality leads to the confusion that is at the heart of the myth. Women come to confuse sexual looking with being looked at sexually ("Clairol...it's the look you want"); many confuse sexually feeling with being sexually felt ("Gillete razors...the way a woman wants to feel"); many confuse desiring with being desirable. "My first sexual memory," a woman tells me, "was when I first shaved my legs, and when I ran my hand down the smooth skin I felt how it would feel to someone else's hand." Women say that when they lost weight they "feel sexier" but the nerve endings in the clitoris and nipples don't multiply with weight loss. Women tell me they're jealous of the men who get so much pleasure out of the female body that they imagine being inside the male body that is inside their own so that they can vicariously experience desire.
Could it be then that women's famous slowness of arousal to men's, complex fantasy life, the lack of pleasure many experience in intercourse, is related to this cultural negation of sexual imagery that affirms the female point of view, the culture prohibition against seeing men's bodies as instruments of pleasure? Could it be related to the taboo against representing intercourse as an opportunity for a straight woman actively to pursue, grasp, savor, and consume the male body for her satisfaction, as much as she is pursued, grasped, savored, and consumed for his?”
― Naomi Wolf, quote from The Beauty Myth
“The violation of the inner person is the greatest territorial crime of all.”
― George Orwell, quote from Keep the Aspidistra Flying
“I've even got one for you, too, Ellie."
"Wow, thank you, Marcus."
"The second one was supposed to be mine," he admitted with a shrug. "But since I don't want to look like a jackass, I'll give it to you. See what a nice guy I am?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "God, Marcus, you're the sweetest guy ever."
He grinned stupidly. "Actually, that's not true. I got it for you to begin with, because you two are attached at the hip and I figured you'd show up together. You're so predictable.”
― Courtney Allison Moulton, quote from Wings of the Wicked
“If I find out that you went within even fifty feet of her, ever again, your ass is mine. Do I make myself clear?”
― Jalpa Williby, quote from Chaysing Dreams
“Most of the phenomena you are familiar with involve the interaction of light and electrons-all of chemistry and biology, for example. The only phenomena that are not covered by this theory are phenomena of gravitation and nuclear phenomena; everything else is contained in this theory.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
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Design of Everyday T...
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