The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people.

Image is an international language.

The first writing of the human being was drawing, not writing.

The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people.

'The Jungle Book.' It's one of the best animated films ever. I saw it when I was small at a cinema in Tehran.

A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic - all of them are the same. The thinking that, 'If you don't think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;' this is something to condemn.

A real love story has to finish bad. That is what I think.

All big changes of the world come from words.

All this misjudgment that we have of each other is based on ignorance. The second you get to travel, you see that human beings, no matter where they come from, they are the same.

America is a very special place. In this country, you have the best and the worst at the same time. Whatever you can imagine.

Americans think cinema is about storytelling; I don't believe that. I think it's a language and everyone has to find their own way of speaking. It's not so much what you say as the way you say it.

Anything that has a relationship with pleasure, we reject it. Eating, they talk about cholesterol; making love, they talk about AIDS; you talk about smoking, they talk about cancer. It's a very sick society that rejects pleasure.

Cinema is a world of imagination.

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were. They hold hands and scream: 'Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid! We are together!' They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.

For me, drawing is a question of death and life. Every day I draw, I write, I do something.

Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw, it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.

Human beings have a lot of problems identifying themselves with other human beings who don't resemble them exactly. But there's something about drawing that means that anyone can identify to a drawing. I mean, people can identify themselves with Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse.

I always say to people, 'You know, if Romeo and Juliet got married, nobody would care about them.' Imagine Romeo and Juliet, six kids yelling, 'Mama, Mama, Papa, Papa!'

I am absolutely not a feminist, I am against stupidity, and if it comes from males or females, it doesn't change anything. If it means that women and men, they are equal, then OK, certainly I am a feminist.

I am very bad at computers. I don't really know how to write email.

I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word 'home' has only one meaning: Iran. I suppose it's that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is born and raised.

I don't consider myself as a feminist but more a humanist.

I don't like 'graphic novel.' It's a word that publishers created for the bourgeois to read comics without feeling bad. Comics is just a way of narrating - it's just a media type.

I don't like the word 'autobiography.' I rather like the term 'autofiction.' The second you make a script out of the story of your life, it becomes fictional. Of course, the truth is never far. But the story is created out of it.

I don't make a career plan. I take things the way they come.

I don't think of myself as a rebel; I just say what I think.

I don't think that I have ever been rebellious. The thing is that I don't believe in people - what people tell me. I have to accept it in my own brain first. I don't listen to anyone, never.

I don't want to quit smoking. I am convinced that if I quit smoking, the world would go to hell.

I don't watch many comic-book movies. But I loved 'Sin City.'

I had this fantasy that in a democracy the government was the population. So I came to America and got a big slap in my face... Americans were not what I thought. I thought I was going to see bastards and I saw nice people, very friendly to me.

I hate this word 'graphic novel.' It is a term publishing houses have created for the bourgeois so they wouldn't be ashamed of buying comics... I'm not a graphic novelist. I am a cartoonist and I make comics and I am very happy about it.

I have been brought up open-minded. If I didn't know any people from other countries, I'd think everyone was evil based on news stories. But I know a lot of people, and know that there is no such thing as stark good and evil. Isn't it possible there is the same amount of evil everywhere?

I have my dark side. You have your dark side. From the second that we have a brain, there are things that are not right - we are human beings with all these illusions and complexes and everything. That's attractive to me.

I like to be sad once in a while. You need it for your equilibrium.

I love the French for their sarcasm, their irony. I love them for their bad moods.

I never wanted to make a graphic novel. As soon as you become a 'writer,' you have to be intelligent all the time... I like the fact that I have the right once in a while to say silly things.

I think animation is like running a marathon, and making a movie is like a 100 meter sprint. The question is: are you a marathon man or are you a sprinter? I realized that I was more of a sprinter than a marathon man. With a long, long project, I get bored easily.

I think that all stories - if you make movies about zombies and aliens - it has always to do with your personal story. If not directly, it is about your fears, your obsessions, things like that.

I think the only universal thing is one individual. If you talk about a country or a nation or a culture, it's so vague. I mean what is a nation? A nation is full of nice and bad and long and tall and short and thin people. It's not like everybody is the same.

I think with pictures; I'm a very lousy writer. If I write without pictures, I become this pathetic chick sitting somewhere trying to be interesting.

I wasn't made to take orders. My grandmother used to tell me: 'Laws are for idiots.' She was right.

I'm a pacifist. I believe there are ways to solve the world's problems. Instead of putting all this money to create arms, I think countries should invest in scholarships for kids to study abroad. Perhaps they could become good and knowledgeable professors in their own countries. You need time for that kind of change, though.

I'm a very individualistic person. That is why I don't belong to any political party or anything. I really believe in justice and freedom.

I'm not a very good financing person. I don't even know how much money I have in my bank account. I never have opened one single envelope from the bank - they freak me out.

I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.

If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface.

If the majority of people were right, we'd be living in paradise. But we are not living in paradise, we are living in hell. What does it mean? That means the majority of people are wrong. So I never believed what people told me.

If today I have to make a political statement, it is, 'I love beauty.' I think beauty makes people better.