" My father always insisted that Persians basically did not have a home, except in their literature, especially their poetry. This country, our country, he would say, has been attacked and invaded numerous times, and each time, when Persians had lost their sense of their own history, culture and language, they found their poets as the true guardians of their true home.” - Foreword by Azar Nafisi "

― Abolqasem Ferdowsi , Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings