Azar Nafisi Quotes

I'm not even sure who I really am sometimes.

Right after 'Raymond' I had a world-is-my-oyster attitude, but I found out I don't like oysters. I had this existential emptiness. 'What is my purpose? Who am I?' I had a big identity crisis.

Not sure of my place in the world (still up for debate) and not sure what I wanted to do with my life (not really up for debate).

I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.

I have played so many romantic roles that I don't know if I am really a romantic in real life. I get confused about the real me.

I used to think I had ambition... but now I'm not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They're easily confused.

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?

I'm a misplaced American, but don't know where I was misplaced.

I don't know how happy I was when I met Sting. I always had this difficulty of not really knowing who I was.

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

Oh my god what am I doing with my life?

Did you ever look in the mirror And see a stranger standing there? Did you ever drive for miles and miles And wonder how on earth you got yourself there?

When I was younger I felt lonely... In terms of my thought processes. I had the constant feeling that I thought differently to everyone around me. So, I suppose I felt lonely for a home. I didn't know where I wanted to be, but I knew I wasn't there yet.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

Error ... is less an intellectual problem than an existential one - a crisis not in what we know, but in who we are. We hear something of that identity crisis in the questions we ask ourselves in the aftemath of error: What was I thinking? How could I have done that?

There have been times when you doubt yourself. You don't know if you're working on the right things.

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself. From within, I couldn't decide what to do. Unable to see, I heard my name being called. Then I walked outside.

We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?

Should I be what I think? But I think about being so many things!

This mirror inside me shows. I can’t say what, but I can’t not know. I run from body. I run from spirit. I do not belong anywhere.

I'll always be a foreigner.

I never felt at home in London, because people were constantly telling me I didn't belong here, so after a while, you tend to believe that.

I don't know what 'home' or 'abroad' is any more.

You have to know who you are, if you don't you have nightmares.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.