Art is no crime. It's every artist's responsibility to make art that is meaningful

Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance.

I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart - the truth - of the culture.

Every Iranian artist, in one form or another, is political. Politics have defined our lives.

In this Western world that we have, culture risks being [only] a form of entertainment.

Being political is an integral part of being Iranian. Our lives are defined by politics.

Poets use metaphors and symbolism to construct images. I construct my images in the same way, except that I am using a different form.

Beautiful woman wrapped in chadors, with huge machine guns in their hands. Brilliant, shocking, amazingly contradictory images. They compelled me to deeply investigate these ideas.

To me, editing is not something you can do in a rush because the artists themselves are not always their own best editors. Time is absolutely everything.

Nature has the most powerfully healing effect.

My mother is my last point of security in relation to my past, and if that breaks, I will not ever have that type of pure love or pure attachment.

He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox. The colder he became, the more he melted.

There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed.

I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing.

Did you think that I forgot you? Did you think I'm going away? Did you feel like I was don't care for you? No. I am here to stay.

If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel.

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

As a person, I believe that I am sensitive, which helped me be the artist I am.

I keep to a minimum dialect, in-jokes about football (soccer) teams and soap opera characters, so as not to lose North American readers.

I'm a sucker for a woman with beautiful eyes.