The More We Die, The Stronger We

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.

Memories Have Ways Of Becoming Independent Of The Reality They Evoke. They Can Soften Us Against Those We Were Deeply Hurt By Or They Can Make Us Resent Those We Once Accepted And Loved Unconditionally.

A Novel Is Not Moral In The Usual Sense Of The Word. It Can Be Called Moral When It Shakes Us Out Of Our Stupor And Makes Us Confront The Absolutes We Believe In.

The Stories From Iran's Present And Past Are Reminders That Freedom, Democracy And Human Rights, Or Fundamentalism, Fascism And Terrorism Are Not Geographically And Culturally Determined, But Universal.

I See People Who Talk About America, And Then Undermine It By Not Paying Attention To Its Soul, To Its Poetry. I See Polarization, Reductionism And Superficiality.