people-from-tehran

"We consider the U.S. troops in West Asia to be terrorists and if they do a damn thing, we will confront them vigorously."

"The person who has recently achieved power (Donald Trump), has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

"Sometimes spiritual, religious leaders and interreligious dialogue can pave the way for a dialogue between two sides to a conflict. It can abolish misconceptions, it can create trust, it can promote dialogue and build bridges to peace. In this respect interreligious dialogue can be a foundation between two sides to a conflict."

"Young Iranians should keep on fighting to gain their rights back. They should never give up, even when the road is long and exhausting. If you keep fighting, there will be a day that change will arrive."

"The fight for equal rights corrodes Islamism to the core of its existence and will eventually overthrow it because equal rights for women are incompatible with an Islamic state structure. A fight for women’s rights is a fight against extremism, better and more efficient than any army. I am confident that the fight for women’s rights in Islamic countries and beyond can halt the lethal spiral of violence."

"In my dreams sometimes I am back in Iran. Even in the 21st century, they still have the “morality police”, who will come to me if my headscarf is not worn properly. I wake up from my nightmares and think: “Oh, I am safe.” But I carry a heavy load because I am not free until those people are free."

"To exercise and watch sport events are the basic rights of every citizen, regardless of gender or race. The fact that all women except for Iranians can attend stadiums inside Iran is a great insult to Iranian women. Yes. Foreign women can attend stadiums inside Iran! The Iranian and Saudi Arabian women are the only women throughout the world who are prevented from entering stadiums, with the difference that Iranian women have had the right for several generations and have enjoyed it."

"In the West we have come a long way to obtain the achievements we can now enjoy. These achievements, such as gender equality, can be threatened by the practice of religion in the workplace. Faith is a personal matter, you should keep it to yourself."

"I grew up in the religious dictatorship of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mine and many of my generation’s is a bitter story of discrimination and oppression under the veil of Sharia. As if the wings we used to have have been clipped to make sure we would never be able to spread them and fly away."

"I can be brief, we accept no obligation to actively bring them back if that means returning their parents as well. Those men and women decided to leave for Syria and turn against our most fundamental norms and values and even chose to fight actively against them. They committed the most horrific acts imaginable. Such people are no longer welcome in our society, let alone that we let the taxpayer pay for their return. All options must be exhausted to prevent these parents from earning their ticket to freedom thanks to their children."

"I know what it is to live as an oppressed Iranian woman. Now that I live in freedom, it gives me the strength and power to struggle for the rights of Iranian women whose voices are muted."

"sometimes, truth alone will not suffice. (Part 6, p273)"

"(What do you think is the relationship between Iranian-Americans and Iranians?) It's a pretty close relationship. Of course I'm talking about the Iranians who are conscious of those outside, not those who live far outside the cities in the villages. To those who are conscious there's always been such an incredible relationship between America and Iran. To many it's still The Great White Hope. The "Great Satan" and name-calling and all that was the work of such a small proportion of the people. America is still known as the Land of Good and Plenty. There's a 24-hour AM radio station here in America and you can tell there are people coming here constantly from Iran. There is such little distance and difference between the countries, especially in the minds of the young. The two countries are in almost constant communication, especially with the Internet."

"Some readers told me there was a stark difference in the writing in my last book [Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith] between the sections set in Los Angeles and those set in Iran. The Los Angeles sections were harsh and devoid of the magic -- but it's much easier to see the dark parts when they're up close."

"What do you call that moment when we let go of the conviction, albeit illusory, that life will only grow larger? That the horizon will always expand?"

"Every time I write a book, I’m trying to figure out the answer to a question. By the time I’ve written the book and gone through different drafts, I’ve figured out the answer. With this book, the question was: Is there going to be a distinct Iranian-Jewish culture and community in the United States in the long run? And do we want to assimilate so much that we become part of the larger American Jewish community? And why have we only managed to integrate ourselves to the extent that we have?"

"She's sixteen years old-a young woman in a city with blue mountains. (first line)"

"Every time I do an event, invariably people in there will start asking questions and within minutes, it evolves into people expressing various forms of outrage: at their Iranian neighbor, at their Iranian ex-partner, at their Iranian client. A lot of the things they say about Iranians are true -- some of us are ostentatious, some of us are too clever in business -- but what people don’t realize is that some people in every community are like that. What’s happened with us is we’ve become identified only by our negative traits. We’re all getting blamed for the sins of the few in the community. I think the reason for that is that we are just very visible. We came to America as a big group and from the very start we made our presence known. I think people are reacting to that."

"there's a great resistance in the media to showing anything from the Middle East."

"Every person I know has a hidden half. (Part 4, p158)"

"Of all the stories I will tell about my mother, this is the one I cherish most. I like to see her at the point of inception, the moment that would set the course for all our lives and all the stories that followed. And though I always know the end even before I have said the first word, I like the possibility, the promise inherent in each new telling, of a different finish. (Part 1, p5)"

"(why did you choose close third for the POV? Why not first person?) GN: Because I wanted to have a voice that echoed the voice of an observer that wasn’t entirely objective or fair. The voice in the novel has a lot of overtones or judgment, because as a society this is the voice that is constantly defining all of us to each other. Opinions get repeated. I wanted the narrative to have that kind of community voice."

"I used to write in Farsi when I lived in Iran. When I first came to America I wrote in French because my French was better than my English. But I've always liked reading in English. There is a freshness to literature in English. In French there are all these historical and grammatical rules. I also speak Spanish, so having read all these books before in all these languages makes the prose available to me a little richer. I can translate concepts from other languages that don't exist in English."

"On Israel’s Independence Day every year—it’s called something else there like “the worst day that happened to Arabs”—they have funeral marches in the streets all over the Muslim World and people walking like someone died. They mourn like people in Israel celebrate. Well, every year in Iran, the Jews march in the streets in mourning also because they have to prove to the government that they are not Zionists. Being Zionist is punishable by death but being Jewish under the mullahs is accepted. The Jews live in fear in many ways, but I think they are so used to it that the Jews who stayed compare those dangers with other dangers like being in the West and having your children become Westernized or assimilated or being here and not having a job or being unable to make a living."

"The only way there will be peace with the Muslim world is if there is an Islamic Reformation the way there was the Christian Reformation. The trouble with Islam is that it has never been adapted to the modern age. It has never had that transition or an adaptation. If we still believed in the Bible the way they did before the Reformation we would still be burning witches. If you did everything you were supposed to do in the Torah a disobedient son would be taken into the city square and stoned to death. People will say that jihad doesn’t really mean to go out and fight with guns and bombs to recreate the caliphate. Well, actually it does. It doesn’t matter how much you wish it didn’t. It’s literal. So what you need are spiritual Muslim leaders to come out and say that this applied a thousand years ago, it doesn’t apply anymore, now we are going to interpret jihad as something internal and peaceful. Unfortunately, there have been some Muslim religious leaders who have tried to create that and they quickly got assassinated, because there are forces with interest in keeping these old interpretations relevant."

"John Rechy taught me everything. He taught me the importance of structure and the importance of clarity. I see that in my own students as well, you know, confusing mystery with vagueness. He taught me the difference."

""There's such a thing as too much hope...It's like a black hole: you fall in, and there's no bottom. That's why [he] is the way he is: he can't tell the difference between what's possible, and what's not." (Part 6, p257)"

"What do you do with a loss you can neither cure, nor accept, nor overcome? (Part 6, p269)"

"At some point you just begin to take yourself a little less seriously."

"Everything always changes as you write."

"I think a lot of people go to writing programs and don’t think of themselves as writers and don’t think of it as a career. Writing is not a hobby!"

"Sing until the city becomes a women's song Until this homeland, becomes a home land."

"Im the last martyr of this tribe The tribe that has no bread, no water The tribe that a lot of its matyrs dont have any grave"

"Take off your scarf, the sun is going to set Take off your scarf, will make the air all right Take off your scarf, make the hair re… re… released"

"Take your head out from under the yoke of slavery And sing the hymn of life Break the longing you have Tell with the whole world Let go, let go, Don't miss your dreams"

"Referring to the name of Amir Diva and complaining to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Tataloo said: "Amir did not do anything wrong, but when he went to the music center of the Ministry of Guidance to get a license, it was only because he is a close friend of mine." "They did not give him permission.""

""I have a long history of crashes," Diva says as she picks up her tape recorder to hear a part of her song about her "crash history." I hit a bus once, my car was completely destroyed. Once again, I had such an accident that even the car's tape recorder failed."

"In 2011, I went to Russia with the national jujitsu team to participate in the World Sambo Championships and managed to win third place in the world, but in the same country, I became acquainted with a very special sport, which was a combination of all martial arts. I was learning more about this field and started researching."

"I lost my father when I was eight years old and my life moved on under my mother's shadow. I have been working professionally in most martial arts for 21 years, including Thai boxing, jujitsu, boxing, judo, karate, etc., and I have been pursuing cage fighting professionally for about two years. When I was in Iran, I won championships in martial arts many times and I was a member of the Iranian national team in the field of "Jujisto", but the story of my acquaintance with the exciting field of "MMA" or "Fighting in a cage" goes back to Year 2011."

"I saw the struggle of the champions of this discipline and read various articles about it. At this time, I realized that this sport is one of the strongest martial arts in the world and the name of this sport is "Cage Fighting". "Working in this field and learning their tricks and techniques tempted me badly."

""Fortunately, the officials of the Wushu Federation, with the support of the youth section, took the team to the Baku International Tournament for the first time, which happened for the first time in the youth section, and we were able to do so in terms of technical level," he said. And technically achieve high growth."

"Regarding his knowledge of the competitors in the Shanghai tournament, he said: "Fortunately, I am more than 50% familiar with how to implement the form of my competitors who will be Asian and world champions, and I was able to analyze them well and closely at the Baku tournament." I'm trying to succeed in Shanghai."

"Iranian Wushu Athlete Farshid Asadian in interview with Anatimes Agency said: A wushu athlete should have a strong mind and great agility to achieve its goals."

"Asadian, referring to the regular and continuous camps of the youth team for successful participation in these fights, emphasized: "Fortunately, the officials of the federation, despite the lack of budget that had plagued all federations this year and the Wushu Federation was no exception, were able to do everything." Provide the necessary for the youth team, and with these conditions, we must reward their efforts by earning the best medal."

"After the positive doping test of “MAGOMED GADZHIEV”, the Russian wushu player, at the World Championships in Toronto, He will be stripped of his gold medal by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADO) and It is predicted that “Farshid Asadian”, the bronze man of Iran at same time, would be renamed the Golden Man."

"The level of Asian youth competition in Shanghai, China, and especially in the "Tai Chi" form, is very high, and it will definitely be harder for me to win the best medal, but I will try to get the most colorful medal in these competitions."

"We have a really shamefully horrid healthcare system, and I think that’s part of it. It’s much more convenient to think these people are just crazy, or it’s in their heads. It’s a very real thing; I don’t know of anyone who doubts it any more. Occasionally I encounter people that do. I’m astounded at their wilful ignorance; it’s not actual ignorance."

"I like ghosts as a metaphor for the outsider. I wish they were real; that would be my preferred afterlife plan. I'd love to observe and haunt with little involvement—I guess that's what being a writer is."

"Estrangement is a constant theme in all of my work. The thing that makes it really difficult is people will look at me and not understand why I feel like an outsider, or why I couldn’t belong in all kind of circumstances. I’m one of those people who visually presents as whoever you want—whatever ethnicity or race is predominant. For me, the challenge is always figuring out what people’s assumptions are, and how I can actually take up space against their assumptions. Because they’re almost always wrong about who I am. That’s a hard thing to get used to in America…"

"When I first started writing, it was much more important for me to appeal to academic audiences or an imagined high-art literary audience. The older I get, the more important it is for me to communicate with everyone and anyone. Right now to me, America is in a crisis of constant misunderstandings. Some of it is willful ignorance, but some of it is not willful and it requires people to explain things…"