Quotes

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

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.

Some movies bring out the creativity in you. Every single audience member can become creative in the face of a particular movie. If you happen to like my films, it's because my films provide a bed for you on which you can find your creativity. The Hollywood movies do not provide that for you.

I never really learned photography.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.

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

If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.

I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.

Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.

From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing.

All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings, we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.

I film normal-life subjects in natural settings that some people would consider uncinematic. But what I want to show is nature itself, as the truth of life.

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

I think violence can never be justified.

Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.

Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it, and every time you read it, depending on your conditions, you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel, once you have read it, you have grasped it.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

There are at least two retrospectives of my work each year in some country.

I think I really produce my best work in Iran.

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

Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.