Abbas Kiarostami

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

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

The world is my workshop. It is not my home.

I feel like a tree. A tree doesn't feel a duty to start doing something about the earth from which it comes. A tree just has to bear fruit, and leaves and blossoms. It doesn't feel grateful to the earth.

Good cinema is what we can believe, and bad cinema is what we can't believe.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

I think violence can never be justified.

I really think that I don't mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It's not to be taken badly at all. This is something I really mean.

The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.

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.

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

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

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

I am a citizen of the world.

There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.

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

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

If you catch me coming out of a film, when I'm emotionally involved, I can tell you at that moment why I like it - but to talk about it years later is not logical to me.

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.

The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.