Quotes from Marjane Satrapi

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.

To tell you the truth, I never wanted to become a moviemaker. It was like I was a cinepihile, and I go, like, three or four times per week to the cinema, and I like to watch films.

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

I'm not a politician because I'm an artist. Politicians have a very easy answer for a very complicated question. I have a very complicated question for what you consider very easy situations.

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

There are things that I love in Iranian cinema and things that I don't. In Iranian cinema, you have to use metaphor because you are living under a dictatorship.

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

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

The information I have about Iran is second hand.

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 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.

It's cinematographic to smoke. Imagine Lauren Bacall without a cigarette.

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

I took three years of karate because of Bruce Lee, you know. I was a green belt.

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.

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'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.

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.

Teacher: What do you want to be when you grow up? Marji: I'll be a prophet.

But violence is news, to a certain extent, and people don't want complicated news. Because as soon as you realize things are complicated, your life becomes more complicated.

If you know a little bit the psychology of human beings, you have to understand that if you say something you should not do, then everybody wants to do it.

Adaptation of books is never a success. When the author wants to make it, it's even worse.

War always takes you by surprise.

Certainly, they'd had to endure the war, but they had each other close by. They had never known the confusion of being a third-worlder, they had always a home!