Art is no crime. It's every artist's responsibility to make art that is meaningful

Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance.

Poets use metaphors and symbolism to construct images. I construct my images in the same way, except that I am using a different form.

Being political is an integral part of being Iranian. Our lives are defined by politics.

My mother is my last point of security in relation to my past, and if that breaks, I will not ever have that type of pure love or pure attachment.

Part of me has always resisted the Western clichéd image of Muslim women, depicting them as nothing more than silent victims. My art, without denying 'repression,' is a testimony to unspoken female power and the continuing protest in Islamic culture.

You're faced with creation, you're faced with something very mysterious and very mystical, whether it's looking at the ocean or being alone in a forest, or sometimes looking at the stars. There's really something very powerful about nature that's endlessly mysterious and a reminder of our humanity, our mortality, of more existential things that we usually manage to not get involved with very often because of daily activity.