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.

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.

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

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.

You cannot build a superstructure on a cracked foundation.

You need to work even if it is a menial or dirty job, because every job is participating in the process of creation.

I don't trust or love anyone. Because people are so creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere.

It is the man who carefully advances step by step...who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.

I'm always constantly trying to find stuff that's different. It's a way to keep me on my toes and keep me interested and keep me excited about work.

[L]eave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring a warlike apparatus at the moment of public danger.

As writers, we don't just need to write about poverty or war or the immigrant experience.

Even while you are in doubt, there will be an answer you will arrive to. Even while you are in pain, your happiness will be waiting.

As I look back on it now, it's obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics.

I'm not going to bargain in the media because I don't think that's appropriate.