“When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit.”

I’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.

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.

It takes loneliness in oneself to recognize it in another.

The art of life is loving and listening to one another.

If you trust your colleague today, he may be your competitor tomorrow, because people frequently move from one company to another.

I was sitting on my own in a restaurant, when I saw a beautiful woman at another table.

Regarding this Dhamma, it is not something that we can simply talk about or take another’s word for it.

Another man understands that nature of the river is to change constantly, regardless of his likes and dislikes, and therefore he does not suffer.

For this occurs just as clay is first molded into one, then shaped into another form, for the Devil is a potter and his witches are but clay.

We need to develop meditation so that the understanding arises clearly within oneself. It is not the case that merely by listening to another’s explanation our defilements will disappear.