“We can certainly be on the same side and the same front with the workers and with the oppressed people of Iran. We can certainly be on the same front with them.”

We recognized that the justice we expected and hoped for was not about to be achieved.

It was universal pressure on the regime to secure my release. International pressure was certainly helpful in my release.

I am only speaking of my own behalf.

The entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.

When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.

I went to the front, but I never participated in the war itself.

Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market.

Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances,

Would Americans accept if we decided to come here and decide who your rulers should be? So why do you expect us Iranians to accept the idea that the United States shall come in there and decide who shall govern us?

When I talk about secularism, I’m talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.

Of course, everyone knows that I’m also opposed to the Iranian regime and I have said that we must change the regime. But it is us, the Iranians, that must change the regime.

When I’m speaking, I’m speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.

And amongst the lower strata in Iranian society, we are witnessing an increasing rise of the expectation and it’s clear that the regime is incapable of satisfying these demands.

I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions.

It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.

There is more disgruntlement, but because there is no media, the voice of this opposition is not heard outside Iran.

There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.

I agree that all good photographs are documents, but I also know that all documents are certainly not good photographs.

If men would only take the chances of doing right because it is right, instead of the immediate certainty of the advantage of doing wrong, how much happier would their lives be.

Certainty is usually a sign of pathology.

Fortune favors the brave; and the world certainly gives the most credit to those who are able to give an unlimited credit to themselves.

Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.

I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.

Certainly some things that are very good can sometimes be used in a bad way.