Firoozeh Dumas Quotes

During his next visit, my father secretly decided that our bathroom needed towel hooks. Using nails that were too long, my father pierced the door, creating towel hooks on one side, medieval blinding devices on the other ... No matter how inconvenient a household malfunction might be, Kazem can always make it worse, for free.

I always made sure to put them back in the exact order in which I had found them, for fear of losing the privilege of browsing in my uncle's library.

My father's motto has always been 'Room in the heart, room in the house.' As charming as this sounds, it translates into a long line for the bathroom and extra loads of laundry for my mother.

They have never heard of Lindsay Lohan. They are blessed.

Repose not trust in testing another's degree of honesty at the risk of one's loss in matters big, unless collateralized.

Without my relatives, I am but a thread; together, we form a colorful and elaborate Persian carpet.

It's not what we eat or don't eat that makes us good people; it's how we treat one another. As you grow older, you'll find that people of every religion think they're the best, but that's not true. There are good and bad people in every religion. Just because someone is Muslim, Jewish, or Christian doesn't mean a thing. You have to look and see what's in their hearts. That's the only thing that matters, and that's the only detail God cares about.

Marriage, in my culture, has nothing to do with romance. It's a matter of logic. If Mr. and Mrs. Ahmadi like Mr. and Mrs. Nejari, then their children should get married. On the other hand, if the parents don't like each other, but the children do, well, this is where sad poetry comes from.

Most immigrants agree that at some point, we become permanent foreigners, belonging neither here nor there. Many tomes have been written trying to describe this feeling of floating between worlds but never fully landing. Artists, using every known medium from words to film to Popsicle sticks, have attempted to encapsulate the struggle of trying to hang on to the solid ground of our mother culture and realizing that we are merely in a pond balancing on a lily pad with a big kid about to belly-flop right in. If and when we fall into this pond, will we be singularly American or will we hyphenate? Can we hold on to anything or does our past just end up at the bottom of the pond, waiting to be discovered by future generations?

only bookworms get excited over other bookworms

Shushtari proverb "Any gift from a true friend is valuable, even if it's a hollow walnut shell." It's fair to say that the Shushtari floating in my house

The Limoges set has brought us more joy in its absence than it ever did in our cupboards. Of course, we no longer own a set of china to pass down to our kids, but that's okay. Francois and I plan on giving our children something more valuable, the simple truth that the best way to go through life is to be a major donor of kindness. We'll tell them that it's possible to own a whole bunch of beautiful, valuable things and still be miserable. But sometimes just having a recipe for chocolate Bunt cake can make a person far, far happier.

A fruit basket would have been nice, but instead we found that a flyer had been slipped under the door. Dear Brainwashed Cowards, You are nothing but puppets of the corrupt Shah. We will teach you a lesson you will never forget. Death to the Shah. Death to you. My father crumpled the flyer and threw it away. "Let's find out where they're having the dinner buffet," he said.

I was a VIP, a Very Iranian Person, and things just take longer for us.

Despite a few exceptions, I have found that Americans are now far more willing to learn new names, just as they're far more willing to try new ethnic foods ... It's like adding a few new spices to the kitchen pantry.

... even though we belong to three different religions. We are alike in so many more ways than we are different.

My parents do not limit themselves to worrying about things that have actually happened. Dreams are also fair game. I often get phone calls with detailed descriptions of a dream, followed by So naturally, I had to call to make sure you were okay and there wasn't a reason why I dreamed of you trapped in a canoe with a blue turtle.

My Dad says that people like that {ignorant about other countries and cultures} are not truly horrible; they just need a geography class, a passport, and a few foreign friends.

Any gift from a true friend is valuable, even if it's a hollow walnut shell.

My parents are highly evolved worriers ... If worrying were an Olympic sport, my parents' faces would have graced the Wheaties box a long time ago.

Older boys often asked me to teach them "some bad words in your language". At first I politely refused. My refusal merely increased their determination, so I solved the problem by teaching them phrases like 'man kharam' which means "I'm an idiot". I told them that what I was teaching them was so nasty that they would have to promise never to repeat it to anyone. They would then spend all of recess running around yelling "I'm an idiot! I'm an idiot!". I never told them the truth. I figured someday, somebody would

Perhaps the people we think we know best are the ones who surprise us most.

The Japanese have a saying that for every new food we try, we gain seven days of life. I may be immortal by now.

It was only when I stopped pretending to be someone else that I found my real friends.

Everyone except gamblers knows that gambling never pays ... Losing, like winning, only increased his determination to play.

Swimsuit competitions go against everything that is right and decent in this world. We're told that beauty is on the inside and that who we are matters far more than what we look like. But could you please just put on this bikini and walk around on high heels so I can judge your inner beauty?

We had always known that ours is a small country and that America is very big. But even as a seven-year-old, I was surprised that so many Americans has never noticed us on the map. Perhaps it's like driving a Yugo and realizing that the eighteen-wheeler can's see you.

The more modest and impractical the kitchen, the more likely one will be invited to stay for a meal. Show me a fancy house with a top-of-the-line gourmet kitchen, and I'll show you a family that eats out a lot.

The bible is foreign to me, but its concepts are not. My father always said that hatred is a waste and never an option. He learned this growing up in Ahwaz, Iran, in a Muslim household. I have tried my best to pass the same message to my children, born and raised in the United States. Ultimately, it doesn't matter where we learn that lesson. It's just important that we do.

My dad always says that kindness is our religion and if we treat everybody the way we would like to be treated, the world would be a better place.

My dad says the dogs and cats in America are luckier than most people in the world.

In America, Christmas is the king of all holidays. To be left out of Christmas is the ultimate minority experience.