I loved Chiara Mastroianni voice, her talent, her generosity. We rehearsed for two months...She's a workaholic and perfectionist, like Vincent [Paronnaud] and myself.

I hate this word 'graphic novel.' It is a term publishing houses have created for the bourgeois so they wouldn't be ashamed of buying comics... I'm not a graphic novelist. I am a cartoonist and I make comics and I am very happy about it.

The most natural thing for us is drawing. The characters [in Persepolis] are hand drawn. We're not technical people. We don't know how to type.

Life is absolutely unbearable. And we're going to die.

I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word 'home' has only one meaning: Iran. I suppose it's that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is born and raised.

The way that you remember your life, it's never linear. You have flashes of different moments of your life, and the flashes aren't equal; they have different styles.

Cinema is a world of imagination.