As far as we are concerned, we are not the toys of any country, including the United States.

I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years' time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today. In twenty years' time we shall be ahead of the United States.

My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, health, culture, affluence, comfort.

To be first in the Middle East is not enough. We must raise ourselves to the level of a great world power.

Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

Muslim brothers be damned; they're our greatest enemies. You know yourself that I'm a Muslim, even a fanatical Muslim. But that does nothing to alter my opinion of the Arabs.

Thank God we in Iran have neither the desire nor the need to suffer from democracy.

My advisers built a wall between myself and my people. I didn't realize what was happening. When I woke up, I had lost my people.

Nobody can influence me, nobody. Still less a woman. Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and charming and keep their femininity.

They want liberalization! I'll give them liberalization. I'll loosen the screws until the Americans beg me to tighten them again.

The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.

Art thaws even the frozen, darkened soul, opening it to lofty spiritual experience.

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.

Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature.

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.

It's such a strange combination that I'd be unhappy to make anything like that without Landis directing.

I had a somewhat frenetic childhood because my mum and dad split up when I was five, and then my mum remarried.

Music was not a big deal to me when I was in middle school. And then I slowly became a big jazz fan. Even more than concerts, a lot of my high school time was spent going to jazz clubs in the city.

Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance --

I actually think being involved in the cesarean would be... I just can't wait!