Azar Nafisi Quotes

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

I work really out of mythology, so often I work out of a story that has remained lodged inside somehow, or I work out of history, you know, out of a sense of historical inevitability with characters.

History often resembles myth, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.

The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud.

In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.

It is not by writing but by arms that the submission you require of me can be obtained. You have dared to propose my surrender to your power. You forget that Cleopatra preferred death to servitude…. When you shall see me march at the head of my allies, you will not repeat such an insolent proposition …

History consists of facts attested to by evidence.

Jack’s life had more to do with myth, legend, saga, and story than with political theory or political science.

Biography is the best history.

The fable of a god or gods visiting the earth did not originate with Christianity

History is merely gossip.

History is a distillation of rumor.

History: Gossip well told.

History is simply man’s desperate bid to give substance to his most visionary dreams.

There are two ways to look at the Alamo—through the eyes of history and through the eyes of myth, and I found that myth wins out pretty much every time.

The general idea of history seems to be that it is the biography of a society…. History is to the common life of many what biography is to an individual.

Some of the most learned of the people were chosen to make known the lives of those lords in songs.

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy.

Historical mythmaking is made possible only by forgetting.

There is a great deal of romance attached to American gun use that should be examined more closely, such as the curious notion that Americans are somehow naturally brilliant shooters. The examination of historical specifics tends to undermine most myths. For example, it is estimated that the 7th Cavalry fired 40,000 rounds at Little Big Horn, killing sixty Indians and wounding one hundred.

We learn from history. That's what it's all about.

Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.

The lives of heroes have enriched history, and history has adorned the actions of heroes ; and thus I cannot say whether the historians are more indebted to those who provided them with such noble materials, or those great men to their historians.

To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense,it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it.

Just so you know, when they say "once upon a time"....they're lying. It's not once upon a time. Its not even twice upon a time. It's hundreds of times, over and over, every time someone opens up the pages of this dusty old book.