“I have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.”

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

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.

I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.

Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.

I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.

Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that’s less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.

I think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

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.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.

I think I really produce my best work in Iran.

The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.

This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.

A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.

Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this:

For all we know, we know nothing.

All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers.

All i can think about is bed. Were sharing the same thought. Youre thinking about bed too? Im thinking about you in my bed.

Maybe my life isn’t great. We don’t have all the answers. Look at it from my side.

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it’s a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

We have fools in all sects, and impostors in most; why should I believe mysteries no one can understand, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for inspiration and style themselves Evangelicals?