I was in jail four and a half years. When I came out, I continued the same struggle against injustice, but instead of using weapons, I began to use art and cinema.

Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves.

From my films, you can at least learn about Iran, you can get a sense of the history and the society. But no such films have been made about Afghanistan, so you really can't know much about it.

The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan.

Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity.

I myself had to grow a longer beard and Afghan clothes. I was in danger of being kidnapped by smugglers, though I didn't know it at the time.

Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.

Do you know that every day, 10 people in Afghanistan are injured by landmines? It will continue for the next 50 years, because the country has the largest number of landmines in the world.

But also, there are no films being made about Afghanistan.

There's an 800 kilometer border between Iran and Afghanistan.

I'm not playing myself. It's a symbolic situation, where I want to introduce a fascist behind the table. I couldn't have had anybody else do that; for it to be successful, I had to do it myself.

Every decision you ever make has its own consequences. Freedom is not the issue. You have freedom to do what you want, you just cannot do it and not pay the price for it.

Pride is a hard thing to let go but is it really worth your all

CONGRATULATIONS DL Havlin! Your entry, "There are No Lights in Naples", an unpublished short fiction - flash fiction genre category, is a finalist for the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards competition!

Knowledge is not determined by what you know, but by whether you believe you can always learn.

The key thing is to get that one splash - that one song or that one video for a song - that catches people's eyes. Because it's all digital content now.

To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.

I've never seen one Star Trek in my whole life.

The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.

The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first word: it should be examined before it is discarded.