I did join the Revolutionary Guard, but I was simply a simple Revolutionary Guard, never a commander.

When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.

The difference between us and the other side is that they use populist and...kind of slogans that are...they fool the people. They are the kind of dishonest and populist slogans that we are not willing to use.

All manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought...it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society. Religion is the private affair of an individual...be present in the public domain, but state has to be clearly separated from religion. When I'm speaking, I'm speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.

Let me begin by saying not only you can't have democracy with $75 million. You can't even have it with $750 billion.

We should put away the militaristic outlook. The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region.

[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.