counting the memories, right? Trying desperately to hold on to these memories that he has when they've left Iran. on. Daniel Naidi, thank you so much for talking with me today.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Merci. Thank you. So I have a confession to make, I wrote you a year ago about your book,

Everything Sad is Untrue to interview you about the book. I had not read it at the time.

And my admission is that I didn't read it until now when you said you want to do this

interview and then I picked it up and I read it and oh my God.

So that's my sad admission.

I'm sorry to admit it.

But it had been on my list and I have a friend that I want to shout out Elizabeth who teaches this book to her high school students and she could not stop talking about it. And she was like, have you read it? Have you read it? That I wanted the interview before I could get my, I wanted it fresh. So I waited. Well, thank you. First of all, I mean, you don't have to apologize to me. You should apologize to Elizabeth, because it sounds like you don't take her recommendations. I do. I do. No, I want to say, okay, before I say anything else, I just want everybody to go pick up the book immediately. It is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I do not exaggerate when I say this. I could not put it down. I just was like, at the end, I was sobbing. I'm getting a little teary just thinking about it now. So first of all, thank you so much for writing this book. Thank you. It is incredible. And I'm speechless about it. Thank you. Well, thank you. That means, well, thank you, Elizabeth. Clearly, you've been my benefactor here. She's been pushing it on people, so I appreciate it. Well, one other factor

that I'll say is I have a cousin Elizabeth who I also love very dearly, and she is very, very Christian,

and she actually was recommended to read the book in church. Oh, wow. Awesome. That was another factor

when I heard that, and I was like, well, okay, it's a church book.

And that I was like, maybe I'll hold off on it, which is not a church book.

I love the idea of it.

It's got a few too many stories about poop to be like an official from Big C church.

But I love whatever church said that.

In Oklahoma, I was raised.

When we came to the United States, we came from Iran, well, a bunch of places, but obviously originally Iran. But in Oklahoma is where I was raised 8 to 18, and we have a phrase that anytime someone says something nice about you, like they say, like, hey, you know, I noticed that like, you're looking really good, or, you know, hey, that was a really great speech you just gave. The way to kind of like, it's the Midwest, right?

You can't just. I noticed that, like, you're looking really good or, you know, hey, that was a really great speech you just gave.

The way to kind of like, it's the Midwest, right? You can't just accept a compliment that would be so prideful. So the way you kind of deflect the compliment, but also kind of, you know, keep your little swagger is a phrase that I've always loved is, you know, thanks. you know, tell your friends, tell your minister, which is, which is like saying, yeah, tell your friends, tell your minister. And it's a phrase that an old man said to me once, and I was like, what does that, what does that mean? And he's, well, you know, like the minister in any given small town has the pulpit. They have the, like, that's where the announcements come from. So if you've done

something great, you know, tell your minister means tell him to tell everybody else, like spread the

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