Ghobadi Quotes & Sayings

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream; it strengthens my creativity. — Bahman Ghobadi

The ease with which such a fate befalls you suggests that it is really necessary to assert yourself in order to prevent yourself from being skipped; how could you ever come to life again if the butcher, the postman and the policeman made up their minds to ignore you? It is a terrible fate; I think I will knock over a chair at this moment; now the lodger beneath knows that I am alive at any rate. — Virginia Woolf

I dream of an India that is a hub of opportunities. We can't restrict ourselves to skills only, we need to encourage entrepreneurship. — Narendra Modi

I didn't have the welfare. I didn't have the proper education. I didn't have these things. That's why it's almost like a complex in me that I want to explode myself in my films. — Bahman Ghobadi

For how many people do you think might yet stand on this planet before the sun grows cold? That's the responsibility we hold in our hands. — David R. Brower

I'm free - but I'm also not free because there are millions of young people living in Iran. A filmmaker can only do a little. — Bahman Ghobadi

In my view, the adults are the burnt generation of Iraq for whom nothing can be done. But for the children, we can worry now, we can talk about them, we can plan for them, we can get our protest heard by others. — Bahman Ghobadi

I can travel with music. I close my eyes, and I can travel all over the world with music. And one after another, stories come to me, and I just record them. — Bahman Ghobadi

I always loved music, and I always wanted to make a film about it, but I could never do it because of the censorship that was around. — Bahman Ghobadi

I went to underground music studios. In the studios, I learned that you can make a movie without a permit. — Bahman Ghobadi

I had seen some films made about the underground music world in Tehran, and most of them were short documentaries about 30 or 40 minutes long. And I always wondered why they weren't publicized more. Really, their only flaw was they were short documentaries. — Bahman Ghobadi

For me, it's better to live without looking over your shoulder, worrying about who is controlling your phone, maybe poisoning your food. — Bahman Ghobadi

I am really bothered when I see my friends facing problems back in Iran, but I tell them that not all the doors are shut. — Bahman Ghobadi

Do not hold back good from those to whom it is owing, when it happens to be in the power of your hand to do it. — Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society

Actually, the only thing I regret is not making more underground films and bringing them with me as historical documents. — Bahman Ghobadi

A whole nation cannot rise above itself. — Alexis De Tocqueville

It's all a great mystery ... Look up at the sky and you'll see how everything changes — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

In Iranian cinema, all the lying takes place before making the film. In order to be able to make the film, you have to lie. — Bahman Ghobadi

I often ask myself, 'Why is it that most of the lies come out of Islamic countries, and why is it that most of the social corruptions are in the Middle East and in these Islamic countries?' The answer is, when you control something, when you suppress something, people try to do it another way. — Bahman Ghobadi

When I talk to students or young writers about the importance of being unafraid to take controversial positions, I'm struck by the degree to which they can't entertain a thought, much less commit one to paper, without imagining the cacophony of snark they'll get in response. — Meghan Daum

I used to believe that people are only born once, but now I feel I have been reborn, like I was given a new life. I see myself as a child, full of energy and hope. — Bahman Ghobadi

The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological atmosphere or climate favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others. — Arthur Balfour

Lying and corruption are in the Iranian society in all sense of the world, and if you do research about married women, you see that a lot of them tell you they get a lot of enjoyment from breaking the rules of corruption, because just for the fact that they break the rules, it makes them oppose the system. — Bahman Ghobadi

If I hadn't turned out to be a filmmaker, I would have been a musician. — Bahman Ghobadi

What are you grinning about, wife?"
I shrugged, all nonchalant. "I like your truck."
"Good. Apparently, it's half yours. — Kresley Cole

When you want to make a film abroad, you need producers and people who support you. You need a team that speaks your language. — Bahman Ghobadi

I had no education in filmmaking. I started with a 8mm camera. I made 34 films, and little by little I gained more experience in filming. — Bahman Ghobadi

In Kurdistan, there's a lot of hardship - a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director. — Bahman Ghobadi

It feels very, very good to make a film freely, to work without having to wait years for script approval, without looking over your shoulder. — Bahman Ghobadi

I use humour a lot. My foundation is tragic, but my appearance is humorous. — Bahman Ghobadi

I love music; I come from a region of Kurdistan that is a base for music. — Bahman Ghobadi

I'm very much interested in music specifically and wanted to make a film about it, but not in an atmosphere of censorship. — Bahman Ghobadi

I think the thing I've always tried to do is - and I didn't plan it, it just started to come out that way - is try to make challenging music that flirts with accessibility. — Trent Reznor