When you make a book or you make a movie, it is almost like hitting on somebody. It's not because you want to seduce people that you will seduce them; you can hit on somebody and it doesn't work. But when you hit on them and it works, then it's really cool.

To tell you the truth, I never wanted to become a moviemaker. It was like I was a cinepihile, and I go, like, three or four times per week to the cinema, and I like to watch films.

There are things that I love in Iranian cinema and things that I don't. In Iranian cinema, you have to use metaphor because you are living under a dictatorship.

A real love story has to finish bad. That is what I think.

I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.

Here [in the USA], you have the best laws for freedom of expression. The problem is that expression can be bought by people who don't want you have it. Apparently, true patriotism destroys freedom of expression.

I don't make a career plan. I take things the way they come.