Marjan Quotes

any right is always coupled with a responsibility ~ Marjan Van Den Belt

She found too much cheer undesirable, smacking of falseness. How did Americans keep up their good spirits day in, day out, year-round? It had to be the brand-shiny-newness of their country. It had to be all that freedom. No thousands of years' worth of stultifying rules to observe. Just easy-peasy rolling with the flow. ~ Marjan Kamali

Cats?" Baba looked up from practicing chopping tomatoes, looking as if he might explode. "Kittens? 'Persian' should remind people of the empire that stretched from one side of the East to the other. The empire that set a new global standard, contributed mountainfuls to astronomy, science, mathematics, and literature, and had a leader, Cyrus the Great, who had the gumption to free the Jewish people and declare human rights! That empire! You can't be shortsighted when you look at history. History is long!" Baba was shouting now. He continued to slice tomatoes. "Cats! What have we been reduced to? ~ Marjan Kamali

Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men
that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex. ~ Susan Fletcher

Unlike the classical Greeks, for whom the fruit symbolized the inescapable cycle of bitter death, with a remorseful Persephone returning to the underworld for her six months of required winter, Marjan liked to believe the old stories of Persian soothsayers, who held a different vision of the tart fruit's purpose in life. She liked to remember that above all else, above all the unfortunate connotations of death and winter, the pomegranate was, and always would be, the fruit of hope.
The flower of fertility, of new things and old seasons to be cradled. ~ Marsha Mehran

The past was always there, lurking in the corners, winking at you when you thought you'd moved on, hanging on to your organs from the inside. ~ Marjan Kamali

The truth is, my young lady, that fate has written the script for your destiny on your forehead from the very beginning. We can't see it. But it's there. And the young, who love so passionately, have no idea how ugly this world is....This world is without compassion. ~ Marjan Kamali

Let the kettle boil slowly...
For stew boiled in haste is of no use to anyone. ~ Marsha Mehran

I'm not scared. The only thing that scares me is God. And guess what, Mina? God is not a fanatic. ~ Marjan Kamali

She would not have understood, then, that time is not linear but circular. There is no past, present, future. Roya was the woman she was today and the seventeen-year-old girl in the Stationery Shop, always. She and Bahman were one, and she and Walter were united. Kyle was her soul and Marigold would never die. ~ Marjan Kamali

Complex problems are often open-ended and poorly defined ~ Marjan Van Den Belt

A vision is not a static picture but a process that gets refined over time ~ Marjan Van Den Belt