I don’t have a body, I am a body.

Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

People know when they are being lied to, they know when their rulers are absurd, they know they do not love their chains.

It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.

The Iranian people were converted to Islam not very much longer after the conquest of the Arab world by Islam, but they refused to adopt the Arabic language, and it's a great point of pride to them that Persian culture and the Persian language and Persian literature survived the conversion to Islam. And the conversion to Islam also was for most of them not the Sunni majority form, but the Shia one. So there's a great discrepancy between Iranian society and many other of what we think of as Arab Muslim States and systems.

There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn't be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb.

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.