Farahani Quotes & Sayings

Exile is my power. — Golshifteh Farahani

A Leaf Man's got to go where the wind blows. — Lois Ehlert

If you want to do what you want to do, you cannot work. So art is going to be finished, and this is the will of the Islamic republic: to not have any artists or art and close the doors of all the cinemas and music and everything. — Golshifteh Farahani

Independent cinema is more thoughtful, delicate. While Western blockbusters can have their own kind of delicateness, it's not delicate enough. You have to be ready to compromise to enter that field. I will do so only if it's worth it. — Golshifteh Farahani

In my life, my parents wanted me to be a musician, I was supposed to go to Vienna to study piano. But this train wanted to go in another direction. — Golshifteh Farahani

Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It's because they're talking about the Ego. It's the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered. — Steven Pressfield

That Ms. Farahani found Mr. Mohassess and persuaded him to share his story is a terrific coup, even if a great deal of his life's work remains elusive. — Manohla Dargis

The subjects that I am working are movies that say something. They are shouting or criticising something. I would hate to play a princess waiting for the prince to come and give her a kiss. — Golshifteh Farahani

Exile is like death. You cannot understand it until it happens to you. — Golshifteh Farahani

I have scars from every film I have made. There is nothing to protect actors. They treat you worse than a dog. You work like a slave, and you know, I like it. That is the way it should be. Every film should be like your last. — Golshifteh Farahani

There's an expression in Persian, 'to play with the lion's tail.' I wasn't what Iranian society wanted me to be - a good girl. I played with the lion's tail. — Golshifteh Farahani

Since a camera is something too heavy for women and initially made for men, you need a good cameraman. — Mitra Farahani

Never seek financial independence in independent cinema since independent cinema doesn't make money. — Mitra Farahani

The real man, spiritual man, is birthless and deathless! He never was born and has never died - As he was in the beginning, he is now, and ever shall be! — Florence Scovel Shinn

I think there is a problem in France that anyone who is not European, you want to know where they come from and why do they come from somewhere or why they speak English or why they are human. That's the big barrier for all of us that are coming from some far, far away countries. But at the end of the day, we are all artists. — Golshifteh Farahani

Life doesn't care about your vision. You just gotta roll with it. — Harold Ramis

Paris is a city that liberates you as a woman from all your sins that you think you are guilty of; it washes away all of that, and you are free. — Golshifteh Farahani

Iranian parents can't stop their children. They're just wild - they want to party, they want their rights, they want to paint, they want to dance. No one can stop these new generations coming. That's why Iran has to open up: it's like a pot full of hot water, vapour and steam. — Golshifteh Farahani

The Iran I'm dreaming of maybe doesn't exist anymore. — Golshifteh Farahani

I had to tell people I was not born with a scarf because I came out Iran. People think you came out of your mother with a scarf; they can't imagine that the scarf is not stuck to your head. — Golshifteh Farahani

I don't believe I could live in Iran again. A tree, once uprooted from the earth, is very difficult to plant again. — Golshifteh Farahani

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I'm coming out of the belly of Iran. It was the only place I was free. It's funny - when I say that, everyone is like, 'What? Freedom?' But the freedom I felt in Iran I've never felt anywhere else. Freedom of mind, freedom of time, of spirit. But after a while, you're so wounded that if you continue thinking about Iran, it will kill you. — Golshifteh Farahani

I was born into an artistic family, and they understood me. But they were really worried, because some of the stuff I did was dangerous. If I'd been caught without the veil with a shaved head, I don't know what would have happened. — Golshifteh Farahani

For me, Iran was paradise, and I believe it's a paradise still, but only if you don't have political problems. If you have a political problem, paradise turns into hell. — Golshifteh Farahani

I don't regret anything and what I have done in my period of my life. Everything happens for a reason, and that's why I am here. — Golshifteh Farahani

The issue of power is not bound to power per se, but often depends on the people themselves, to what extent they unconsciously encourage this power and its structures. — Mitra Farahani