“You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.”

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

Let me begin by saying not only you can’t have democracy with $75 million. You can’t even have it with $750 billion.

But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.

Religion is separate from the institution of the state.

We’ve had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system?

They lie on railroads, they tie themselves to the gates.

There’s all kind of evidence that there is enormous corruption in the distribution of that money. For example, they gave about $100 to $150 dollars to each of the teachers. They gave about $500 dollars to those who were getting married. Through this process.

I could witness that as a result of Ahmadinejad, they lived in a dream. They believed that paradise is around the corner and that all their demands shall be met.

What I’m worried about is that, in case that happens [nuclear explosion], then the Iranian people are the ones who are going to pay the heaviest price. But none of the Western countries have seriously talked about this.

Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don’t have a nationalities problem, we don’t have an ethnic problem.

All manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought…it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society.

The solutions to the problems of the distraught lower strata of society are problems that can only be solved in the context of an overall political, cultural, economic development.

If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist.

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

The ecological movement is concerned about this, and this is in here, where everything is public.

I have spent six years in prison, the last six years. Even if I was outside the prison, how much actual space was there for an investigative journalist to do his work in Iran?

I had to bring myself back down to being a normal person again.

I have learned not to overlook the advantages of being me. From when I was a softball player, and I held the stolen bases record.

When dawn comes, that memory gradually distances…Tonight, I will bring it to sleep with me, so that will not be taken away by the waves of the night.

When we’re in our true being, the purpose of life is to feel that every moment is the purpose.

We can’t meet the demands of being a modern society.

I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

He knows what he speaks of, what he brings with him and what he promises; and he can convey it to those who know it not.