#pre

I hope you're representing the devil's advocate. ↗

— Charles Olson

#devil #hope #i #representing #you

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#poet #precision #scientist #should #writer

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#among #bullet #clean #embedded #fiction

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. ↗

— Ralph Nader

#function #i #leaders #leadership #more

No presidential candidate should visit Las Vegas without condemning organized gambling. ↗

— Ralph Nader

#condemning #gambling #las #las vegas #organized

President Reagan was elected on the promise of getting government off the backs of the people and now he demands that government wrap itself around the waists of the people. ↗

— Ralph Nader

#backs #demands #elected #getting #government

Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west. ↗

— Azar Nafisi

#also #benign #choice #condescending #countries

This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry? ↗

— Azar Nafisi

#apologists #ask #centuries #culture #degrades

Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose. ↗

— Azar Nafisi

#been #emotions #evoke #fundamentalism #german

The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if you don't compromise, you may suffer. ↗

— Azar Nafisi

#american dream #best #best work #compromise #dream