You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

What's happened recently in Pakistan, India and Kuwait only goes to show that it's futile to imitate Western democracy. They've ended up exactly where they started.

I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.

Let me tell you quite bluntly that this king business has given me personally nothing but headaches.

The Saudis have never shown any respect for human rights, either now or in the past. Even a petty burglar faces having one of his hands chopped off. The liberal press in America prefers to ignore all this, although they don't hesitate to blacken the reputation of Iran.

Soviet propaganda is remarkably effective and the Americans are even more remarkably stupid.

I personally object to the veil on aesthetic as well as other grounds; but I must admit that, for instance in the suburbs of American cities, I have often seen women attired more sloppily than our Persian women normally are.