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.

If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

I had so many professions before. I didn't want to do this particularly. It just happened.

Drawing is the first language of the human being before writing. It's a transcription of how the human being sees reality, not reality itself.

You see a picture and you understand perfectly, immediately, the basic thing that's happening. It's probably more accessible because we are in a culture of images. People are used to seeing stories that way. They understand looking at pictures.

Writing is not for me. I completely lose my sense of humor when I write. I become extremely pathetic, very sensational. Images give me possibilities that I don't have with words.

The first writing of the human being was drawing, not writing.