Fundamentalists can't take a joke. Ever. They want us to blindly obey, parrot everything they do, and believe in their dogmas.

The future belongs to us. I think that art is a force that can change the world.

Nothing is allowed in public, while everything is permitted behind closed doors.

I believe in freedom, I'm for a world without borders. But that's an ideal. On a practical level, I'm for a secular state where religion only plays a minor role.

The most important element of democracy, I believe, is the protection of minorities.

My family thought if I spent time in the military, I'd become more reasonable, a bit calmer. But I've always been extreme in what I do - both as a believer and a nonbeliever.

I was a very devout boy and one day I heard the music of an Egyptian Koran singer in the mosque. The melancholy of this music touched me so deeply that it brought me to tears.

I'm a musician; I have to perform. I can't give up. I have to be even more courageous. We know that we have a lot of enemies. Not only in Iran. But that doesn't matter.

I lived in the world of poetry and ideas. I thought life was all about art and philosophy. In the military, I suddenly found out about the real world.

Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous but they won't be avoided.

If you have to choose between the two hopeless situations, choose the one which gives you at least an opportunity to fight!

We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans.

Some truth has no nourishment in it.

There's something magical about putting yourself into life. You've got to stand up and take responsibility for your own life and you cannot abandon that.

There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am.

Some of the craziest people Ive met, in my life, are some of the most brilliant people Ive met.

I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.

One of the most significant events in our distant past is still perhaps the greatest mystery: the origins of life itself.

You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.