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Quote by Azar Nafisi

“There are so many different forms of silence: the silence that tyrannical states force on their citizens, stealing their memories, rewriting their histories, and imposing on them a state-sanctioned identity. Or the silence of witnesses who choose to ignore or not speak the truth, and of victims who at times become complicit in the crimes committed against them. Then there are the silences we indulge in about ourselves, our personal mythologies, the stories we impose upon our real lives.”

Book:Things I've Been Silent About

Work

Things I've Been Silent About

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Author

Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi is an Iranian-born American writer and scholar, renowned for her experiences during the Islamic Revolution in Iran and her work 'Reading Lolita in Tehran'. She taught English literature at the University of Tehran and was forced to leave Iran after the revolution. Nafisi later moved to the United States and earned a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. more

“But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told him no. No, I had not. But I had been wrong. And Tom Cardle has been right. For I had known everything, right from the start, and never acted on any of it. I had blocked it from my mind time and again, refused to recognize what was staring me in the face. I had said nothing when I should have spoken out, convincing myself that I was a man of higher character. I had been complicit in all their crimes, and people had suffered because of me. I had wasted my life. I had wasted every moment of my life. And the final irony was that it had taken a convicted pedophile to show me that in my silence, I was just as guilty as the rest of them.”

Silence Wasted Life

Book:A History of Loneliness

Source: A History of Loneliness

“Her thoughts are full of other things just now; and people have such different ways of showing feeling: some by silence, some by words.”

Feelings Silence Thoughts Words Self Expression

Book:Ruth

Source: Ruth

“I listen to the silence and yearn to be more me, swimming in the sea of myself, learning eternally - finding out where the rocks are and smoothing them into sand.”

Silence Learning Swimming Myself Quotes Eternally Finding Out Smoothing

Author:Jay Woodman

“To feel free, create a fog around yourself! And how can you do this? Be silent! When you are silent, people will not notice you much! You will be invisible, you will be inside the fog!”