When we stop believing in the gods we can start believing in their stories.

Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

In Iran, fundamentalism was fuelled to an extent by the regime of the Shah being supported by the West.

What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.

I saw Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained,' and you could say a lot of things against it, but it was incredible fun. I don't like blood and gore and I am very squeamish about violence, but Tarantino's violence is actually funny.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.