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.

Fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.

I don't consider myself as a feminist but more a humanist.

I don't want to quit smoking. I am convinced that if I quit smoking, the world would go to hell.

A cat can never be well-trained because they're too independent.

My culture comes from everywhere. I'm sick of this notion of nationality, that if you're brought up in the same city or same country you're the same. Even three kids brought up in the same family with the same genes, they are not the same. Just consider a human a human.

I don't like 'graphic novel.' It's a word that publishers created for the bourgeois to read comics without feeling bad. Comics is just a way of narrating - it's just a media type.