“Most horror movies are certainly that.”

And two balls minus one, six titles at the tour de France.

You made one mistake. You married me.

It’s not that comedy has changed in terms of what’s funny. For me, it’s changed in that sometimes I don’t feel my finger is on the pulse.

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

Every cripple has his own way of walking.

I’m into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn’t feel true, I don’t want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that’s why I don’t always fit into the world of performing arts.

Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

A general and a bit of shooting makes you forget your troubles … it takes your mind off the cost of living.

I’m a Communist by day and a Catholic as soon as it gets dark.

The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

I saw a notice that said “Drink Canada Dry” and I’ve just started.

An author’s first duty is to let down his country.

I didn’t go to the cinemas a lot as a kid.

Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.

People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.

The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can’t believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I’m interested in.

I am not ready to fit into the mould of commercial cinema.