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“On the misty window of her room, she let her finger trace a broken line. She was that line.”
― Azin Sametipour, Tehran Moonlight

“When the day comes that Tehran can announce its nuclear capability, every shred of international law will have been discarded. The mullahs have publicly sworn鈥攖o the United Nations and the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency鈥攖hat they are not cheating. As they unmask their batteries, they will be jeering at the very idea of an 'international community.' How strange it is that those who usually fetishize the United Nations and its inspectors do not feel this shame more keenly.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Mahtab looked out of the window at the moon clearing the rooftops, bathing everything around in its silver light. She sighed, envying Nasim's freedom. For just like Mahtab's namesake, as the moonlight was beholden to the sun, she was beholden to her family.”
― Azin Sametipour, Tehran Moonlight

“The sky [above Tehran] was like a star-eaten black blanket, and so far as I could read them its constellations were unfamiliar. Lawrence speaks somewhere of drawing 'strength from the depths of the universe'; Malcolm Lowry speaks about the deadness of the stars except when he looked at them with a particular girl; I had neither feeling. The founder of the Jesuits used to spend many hours under the stars; it is hard to be certain whether his first stirrings of scientific speculation or pre-scientific wonder about space and the stars in their own nature were some element in his affinity with starlight, or whether for him they were only a point of departure, but in this matter I think I am about fifty years more modern than Saint Ignatius; stars mean to me roughly what they meant to Donne's generation, a bright religious sand imposing the sense of an intrusion into human language, and arousing a certain personal thirst to be specific.”
― Peter Levi, The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin

“Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Santiago de Chile sit on the ring of fire. Tehran, far away from the ring still suffers the same fate. Earthquake-prone, the city has learned to adapt. The city, stacked with apartments on top of one another, looks like a box of Lego. Tight alleyways, covered with buildings, stretch all the way to the foot of the mountains. The folks in Tehran don鈥檛 want to even imagine what chaos will ensue if a major earthquake strikes. The most frightening phenomenon though isn鈥檛 the rubble and building blocks crumbling down. None of that scares the people. What concerns them is if the mother of all earthquakes pays a visit, the biggest threat will be rats. Tehran鈥檚 underground has a burgeoning 鈥渞atopolis.鈥� To every living human being in the city, there are three rats to match every living soul. And if the city collapses, three rats are enough to ravage through human flesh in a matter of days. So the urban myth goes. Even if bodies can be rescued from the rubble there鈥檒l likely be carcasses left behind.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“The Tehran Derby pits Esteghlal against Persepolis, the blue versus the red.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Children wait on the side of uneven pavements. Some for school buses. The more fortunate for private cars. They are all on their way to school. Jovial, loud and full of hope, they remain oblivious to the tainted well dwelling right beneath their feet.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Sweepers in orange suits, sentenced to a life of mopping cigarette butts, pale leaves and dust off Tehran鈥檚 asphalt highlands waltz from side to side. The odd rebellious senior citizen turtles their way to the bakery. Yet every morning, the inhabitants of Tehran are hoping that maybe, just maybe, today will be better than the previous day.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“A far cry now that she is in Tajrish. This is District One. The posh end of town. Snuggled deep in between the streets of this bustling roundabout are where the rich live. She looks up, a huge billboard with a blue-eyed model sits there with a phone in his hand. Some brand she鈥檚 never heard of. She has never quite understood the infatuation Iranians have with celebrities and colored eyes. To her, it seems like any Iranian with green or blue eyes makes their way either on the big screen or on a billboard. The old traditional concept of Persian beauty, black eyes with a unibrow now replaced with Hollywood-inspired looks. The Leo DiCaprios, Brad Pitts of this world. Still a cheap knock-off of them as well.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Nowrooz, the Persian New Year, is the only time during the year that people stay in for two weeks. Tajrish roundabout though never sleeps.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Everything is made in China nowadays,鈥� the old man replies with a sigh. 鈥淭hey even make carpets better than we do.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Everybody in Tehran had grown accustomed to electricity shortages. It was just a normal part of day-to-day life.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Traffic was longer than a coupon queue.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Khorshid meaning 鈥渟un鈥� in Farsi. It was a fitting name for the building as it almost reached the sun.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Far from Tehran Pars and Mehdi鈥檚 sordid home lies Valiasr Street. The longest street in the Middle East. It stretches from the south to the north of Tehran separating the city鈥檚 western and eastern hemispheres. The further you get up north, the more flashy the shops and alleys get. It ends in Tajrish where the last stretch of Valiasr is chaperoned by magical trees giving it shade all year round.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“A slick BMW 5-Series pulls right by the traffic light. As the car comes to a halt, a bunch of kids, street kids, go to work. One of them, a young boy no more than eight years old kisses the BMW emblem on the hood. The driver, drenched in apathy, doesn鈥檛 even look up. Another kid comes by the side, begging the beamer鈥檚 owner for some cash. Everybody in Tehran knows that to pay these kids is bringing Slumdog Millionaire鈥檚 silver screen to the silver smog city.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“In the north of Tehran, right by the foothills of Tehran鈥檚 bit of the Alborz mountain range is Niavaran. The district is an entanglement of slopes and roads where way back in the day, going back to the Qajar era, villas and houses were all you would see. Now though it has become an extension of the city center with buildings and towers scattered across its narrow roads. Even with all of the congestion, the weather is a few degrees cooler than the rest of the city and it remains one of the 鈥減ort out, starboard home鈥� districts in Tehran.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Let鈥檚 go and live it up, a philosophy the RKOTs, the Rich Kids of Tehran, live by.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Every summer, he traded in Tehran鈥檚 electricity shortages for London鈥檚 high-voltage social scene.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“In this godforsaken city, predators make fortunes, and the prey? The prey either end up praying or doing drugs.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“She starts thinking how the city鈥檚 peaceful aura withers and gives birth to its decrepit personality.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Pipes filled with crack burn at the same time American flags do. Just another paradox in the life and times of modern-day Iranian. The '80s introduced the world to the crack epidemic. It wasn't long before crystallized cocaine found its way from the mean streets of New York to the beaten-down streets of Tehran.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“It started with a nose job, a staple in one out of every five Iranians, when she was in her mid-twenties. Then it was Botox. Then a face-lift. Now she's one strike away from being a bona fide palang, the name Iranians give to women who've had more touch-ups than a brush on a canvas. The word means "leopard" and Sahar believes the more operations she has, the higher the chance of her finding a husband.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Right by the edge of the fractured pavement next to the uneven road circling the square sat a fifteen-year-old boy with a hard helmet. There's something wrong with a boy that age waiting to go to work. Sitting in a yoga pose, he had a piece of bread and some feta cheese in front of him next to a broken barrel filled with tar and wood. It was lit up, which would only mean it was there to keep him warm during the night.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Right by her, a guy yells out, "Sefr, sado, bisto, yek." The number 0121. It was the PIN to his debit card, which the man behind the counter was charging. A nation cloaked with duality, the same society where theft is considered smart, is the same one that openly shares PINs of their debit cards with one another.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Tara looks out and sees a kid digging into a bin like it's Christmas and he's looking for Santa's gift.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish