First of all, there are aspects of culture which are really reprehensible, and we should [all] fight against it. We shouldn't accept them. Second of all, women in Iran and in Saudi Arabia don't like to be stoned to death.

I would like to think of my own status as what you called 'citizen of the world' or a 'citizen of a portable world,' if not of the world.

Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.

You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.

Many times I tell my American students my Iranian students understood how valuable [freedom] is because they had been deprived of it. Sometimes in the West we need to be reminded of the fact that blood has been paid for what we have.

Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.