Anything that has a relationship with pleasure we reject it. Eating, they talk about cholesterol; making love, they talk about Aids; you talk about smoking, they talk about cancer. It's a very sick society that rejects pleasure.

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

I wanted to do my artistic work, and in Iran you have censorship. It was difficult for me to do the work I wanted to do.

Adaptation of books is never a success. When the author wants to make it, it's even worse.

I don't like the word 'autobiography.' I rather like the term 'autofiction.' The second you make a script out of the story of your life, it becomes fictional. Of course, the truth is never far. But the story is created out of it.

It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.

You have to be narcissistic to be an artist. You have to think you are the centre of the whole thing otherwise why do you create? The only thing is to recognise it, and then you make the best of it.