“There is no possibility of a public demonstration [in Iran] of such defiance, but these defiant acts are certainly going on.”

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.

We believe in equal rights for all people in all nations. If Israel, the United States, Russia, Pakistan, other countries, China, have the right to have a nuclear program and nuclear bomb, Iran, too, must have that same right.

The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm.

When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act.

… it is one thing to like defiance, and another thing to like its consequences.

This may be the vocation of man: to say “Amen” to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.