Quotes & Sayings About Iranian

It is difficult for Iranian scholars and universities to retain their independence and to be seen as doing so, when cultural warfare is being carried out by some of their American partners. Indeed, such irresponsible behavior basically serves to intensify suspicion and in reality decreases the opportunity for real and meaningful dialogue. — Mohammad Marandi

Is the Iranian record of intervention and terror worse than that of the U.S.? — Noam Chomsky

Iranian women are very courageous and active, even with all the oppression. — Farah Diba

He [Mosaddegh] was part of a generation of Iranian men who were inspired by Europe but who expected their wives to remain Iranian. (p37) — Christopher De Bellaigue

It is one of the great ironies of the American war in Iraq - was that the guys who really got the most out of it were the Iranians. And they have us to thank for that. Yeah, I mean we basically put Maliki in power in 2006, but he has been - he's really not a friend of the United States. He's a friend of the Iranian regime. — Dexter Filkins

Many of the Iranian players show their Christian names on their shirts. — Clive Tyldesley

In art class at school we learned how to draw tanks and soldiers opening fire at [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini and his beard. They didn't teach us the names of the flowers that grew around us in the city - wild flowers of all kinds and all colors. The math teacher used to whip the kids with his trouser belt. My father was constantly violent toward my mother for the most trivial reasons. — Hassan Blasim

Middle East by the Arab Muslim caliphate, ending with Muslim fragmentation and the Iranian Buyid capture of Abbasid Baghdad, saw Muslim and Maronite establishment in Mount Lebanon. — William Harris

I feel more Jewish than I do Iranian. — Said Sayrafiezadeh

Iranian high school students learned how to draw microscopes and how to write letter-perfect descriptions of the way in which microscopes worked, but the microscopes in Iranian schools usually remained locked up as property too valuable to be put in students' hands. The — Roy Mottahedeh

The trains [in a country] contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar with its gadgets and passengers represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character. At times it was like a leisurely seminar, but I also felt on some occasions that it was like being jailed and then assaulted by the monstrously typical. — Paul Theroux

Nobody has trusted the Iranian government from day one, but the idea of just refusing to have any kind of talks is dangerous in the extreme. Every administration says at least that we're trying to have talks between Israel and Palestine and solve the Middle East peace problem. — Douglas Brinkley

We have a rare chance to pursue a new path, a different, better future that delivers progress for both our peoples and the wider world. That's the opportunity before the Iranian people. We need to take advantage of that. — Barack Obama

They are people who, by and large, think the Administration's policy - and the Iranian case is a classic one - is very stupid. They can't get that view in, and so by talking to me, they accomplish something. It's a way of saying, this ought to be discussed, we got to get this out. That's a form of patriotism, in a funny way. — Seymour Hersh

The students often like to talk about movies that they feel are Orientalist like 300 or Babel. They talk a lot about the possibility of U.S. aggression against Iran and the Iranian hostages being held by the U.S. in Iraq. — Mohammad Marandi

To me, what I've always said is that the president [Barack Obama] has set up an awful situation through his deal with Iran, because what his deal with Iran has done is empower them and enrich them. And that's the way ISIS has been created and formed here. ISIS is created and formed because of the abuse that [Bashar] Assad and his Iranian sponsors have rained down on the Sunnis in Syria. — Chris Christie

The Iranian government intends to use the nuclear program for peaceful purposes, but must convince international public opinion of that. — Shirin Ebadi

I have flown in just about everything, with all kinds of pilots in all parts of the world - British, French, Pakistani, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese - and there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them except for one unchanging, certain fact: the best, most skillful pilot has the most experience. — Chuck Yeager

A brilliant inquiry into the contemporary Iranian predicament and what it means for the world. At a time when all too many of our leading thinkers are mired in the weeds of provincialism and narrow ideological wars, Postel has written a work of grace, intelligence, and towering integrity. Reading 'Legitimation Crisis' in Tehran is nothing less than a masterpiece of moral and political criticism. — Afshin Molavi

There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power (as "the powerful," "the masters," "the commanders") or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as "the rich," "the possessors" (this is the meaning of 'Arya,' and of corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic). — Friedrich Nietzsche

In the past it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. KGB ... used to torture in order to get this data. — Evgeny Morozov

Since taking office, I've made it clear that the United States was prepared to begin a new chapter of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We offered the Iranian government a clear choice. It could fulfill its international obligations and realize greater security, deeper economic and political integration with the world, and a better future for all Iranians. Or it could continue to flout its responsibilities and face even more pressure and isolation. — Barack Obama

If there were Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, it makes it certain there would be a reprisal attack against the United States at some point. — Salman Rushdie

It is perhaps because of the Iranian concept of the home and garden (and not the city or town it is in) as the defining center of life that Iranians find living in a society with such stringent rules of public behavior somewhat tolerable. Iranian society by and large cares very little about what goes on in the homes and gardens of private citizens, but the Islamic government cares very much how its citizens behave once they venture outside their walls. — Hooman Majd

The pursuit by the Iranian regime of nuclear weapons represents a direct threat to the entire international community, including to the United States and to the Persian Gulf region. — Condoleezza Rice

The familiar song of a night-singing nightingale rises from somewhere in the garden. A nightingale that in this season of cold should not be in the garden, a nightingale that in a thousand verses of Iranian poetry, in the hours of darkness, for the love of a red rose and in sorrow of its separation from it, has forever sung and will forever sing. — Shahriar Mandanipour

The Iranian regime doesn't express the wishes and values of the Iranian people. — Moshe Katsav

Hence, when some members of the Iranian diaspora, especially women at the moment, use different tropes including the trope of the veil and the issue of gender to construct an image of oppression or to describe the 'silenced' Iranian woman, western intellectuals, policymakers, and publishing houses are all quick to introduce them as presenters of the authentic Iranian experience. — Mohammad Marandi

We're having this conflict in Syria is because [Vladimir] Putin wants to take Iranian oil and channel that oil up to Europe. — Andrea Tantaros

The attack on the British embassy in Tehran came just days after the Iranian 'parliament' voted to expel the British ambassador, and therefore reeks of official complicity. — Elliott Abrams

Our family has lived in Iran for 2,500 years, and Iranian Jewry has the long history in that land. — Moshe Katsav

We probably could more successfully resolve the North Korean nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning. We could successfully resolve what American leaders seem to perceive as an Iranian nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning. — Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

The intelligence services would probably be in a better position to make an assessment of the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program than Podhoretz or Ledeen. They don't have access to any specific information. So for them to dismiss it has no great value because they have no authority whatsoever on this issue. For them to push forward with their efforts to get a war started between the U.S. and Iran, you certainly cannot say that Iran does not have a nuclear program. If you say that, then the justification for war has basically been eliminated. — Trita Parsi

As Beverly Hills becomes more Iranian-Jewish, it is becoming politically conservative. — Ben Stein

With the common Iranian threat bringing the Sunni Arab world and Israel closer together, an Israeli-Palestinian peace would go a long way in improving relations and rebuffing Iran's regional ambitions. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

There was shish-kabob for lunch, huge, savory hunks of spitted meat sizzling like the devil over charcoal after marinating seventy-two hours in a secret mixture Milo had stolen from a crooked trader in the Levant, served with Iranian rice and asparagus tips Parmesan, followed by cherries jubilee for dessert and then steaming cups of fresh coffee with Benedictine and brandy. — Joseph Heller

If you [Americans] behave with disrespect - even just a little bit - [the Iranian people] will punch you in the mouth so hard that all your devouring teeth will fall off. — Mohammed Emami-Kashani

If some want to misuse the generosity of our nation, and re-examine what was previously examined, they should know the fire of the anger of the Iranian nation will be extremely burning and devastating. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government. — Doris Lessing

My expectation would be that if we can begin discussions soon, shortly after the Iranian elections, we should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction. — Barack Obama

There are many Iranians working at NASA. One of the engineers involved with the spaceship that went to Mars is an Iranian. — Farah Diba

The Bolsheviks were atheists but they were hardly secular politicians in the conventional sense: they stooped to kill from the smugness of the highest moral eminence. Bolshevism may not have been a religion, but it was close enough. Stalin told Beria the Bolsheviks were "a sort of military-religious order." When Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, died, Stalin called him "a devout knight of the proletariat." Stalin's "order of sword-bearers" resembled the Knights Templars, or even the theocracy of the Iranian Ayatollahs, more than any traditional secular movement. They would die and kill for their faith in the inevitable progress towards human betterment, making sacrifices of their own families, with a fervour seen only in the religious slaughters and martyrdoms of the Middle Ages - and the Middle East. They — Simon Sebag Montefiore

But the U.S. has to be careful. If our strategy depends on Sunnis doing the fighting to clear Mosul and Ramadi - and, as near as I can tell, that is the strategy - then you have to be careful that Sunnis don't perceive the U.S. to be operating arm in arm with Iran or with Iranian-backed Shiite militias that Abadi - Prime Minister Abadi is using in Iraq, so that, in effect, we're fronting for Iran. — David Ignatius

As Dutch, British and French explorers literally put this Great Southern Land on the map it would be ridiculous to say that modern day Australia is anything other than a grand - and successful - outpost of
Euro-colonialism and, more specifically Anglo-Celt British colonialism. It's a fact of life like the Euro-colonization of the Americas etc. If it was an outpost of, let's say, Iranian or Zimbabwean colonialism would so many people still be so desperately trying to get into Australia by any means necessary, legal or otherwise? It's doubtful. Thank the Gods for Euro-colonialism! — Douglas Pearce

I don't see myself as a very important person. But I was the second woman to write a novel in Iran, and I have written most of the novels about Iranian women. In this way, maybe I have a good place in Iranian literature. — Shahrnush Parsipur

China is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear issue. — Li Zhaoxing

We've got this arc of instability from North Africa to South Asia, and we have to pay close attention to it. And we have to build coalitions, something that I did to take on the Iranian nuclear program, and what I will do as president to make sure that we defeat these terrorist networks. — Hillary Clinton

And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds
nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell. — Dorianne Laux

Being political is an integral part of being Iranian. Our lives are defined by politics. — Shirin Neshat

That President Mohammad Khatami's policies have been blocked is the bitterest incident in the contemporary Iranian history. This means that the wishes of millions of people who voted for Khatami and called for freedom and justice have been ignored ... Why should cultural activities and journalism be so risky in Iran? — Abdolkarim Soroush

The Arab spring was not as radical as the French or Iranian revolutions. It did not pull out the deeply entrenched roots of the state. Instead, it was satisfied to replace the top of the pyramid with newly elected, but inexperienced, leaders. — Wadah Khanfar

I grew up thinking of myself as an American but also, because of my parents and the Iranian culture that was in our home, as an Iranian. So if there's any such thing as dual loyalty, then I have it - at least culturally. — Hooman Majd

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a region free of Iranian nukes are worthy goals that should be able to withstand public scrutiny in every Middle Eastern capital. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

Stuxnet, a computer worm reportedly developed by the United States and Israel that destroyed Iranian nuclear centrifuges in attacks in 2009 and 2010, is often cited as the most dramatic use of a cyber weapon. — Barton Gellman

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad. — Maz Jobrani

Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi'ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin. — Uri Avnery

After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities. — Azar Nafisi

Americans have eliminated Iran's worst enemies, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam [Hussein]. I occasionally threatened my Iranian counterpart in Kabul that one day I would send him a big bill for what we did. But, seriously, Iran is pursuing a dual strategy in Iraq. On the one hand, the Iranians, after decades of hostility, are now interested in good relations. On the other hand, they want to keep the country weak and dominate the region. — Zalmay Khalilzad

In many ways I'm similar to Barack Obama, who also has a strange name but was raised by a white American mother. His background is far more complicated than his name would suggest. Furthermore, the fact that I was a child during the hostage crisis has caused me to equate being Iranian with being alienated. — Said Sayrafiezadeh

Jason Rezaian is coming home. A courageous journalist for The Washington Post who wrote about the daily lives and hopes of the Iranian people, he's been held for a year and a half. He embodies the brave spirit that gives life to the freedom of the press. Jason has already been reunited with his wife and mom. — Barack Obama

My trainer taught me, because he's Iranian, and that's a beautiful snack [pistachios]. I have some with me, actually, in my bag. You could eat that on a plane instead of the salted nuts. And a serving size a day is the size of your hand, not the size of your head! — Sandra Cisneros

The very concept of an Iranian university is an oxymoron. There are no free and open places of learning in that repressive theocracy. Dissenters are not given tenure; they are murdered, after first being tortured. Blasphemy, which is broadly defined, is punished. Gays are not only excluded from Iranian universities, but are imprisoned and killed. — Alan Dershowitz

We do not need an atomic bomb. The Iranian nation is wise. It won't build two atomic bombs while you have 20,000 warheads. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Did you see Grace is back with us?"
Megan did see me. She saw me jump off a cliff and crawl under an Iranian fence. Megan has seen plenty. And I can't help but hold my breath, waiting on her answer.
"Hi," Megan says, turning to me. "Welcome home."
Home. The word hits me. I've spent all my life thinking that I didn't have one, but now that I'm back I can't deny that I've spent more my life on Embassy Row than in any other place-that maybe it just wasn't my mother's childhood home. In a way, it's mine, too. — Ally Carter

As a child, I used to feel much more American than Iranian. Like everyone else at school, I pledged allegiance to the flag. However, after returning to Iran, sadly, I learned about a very different America, an America that most Americans have no idea exists. For the first couple of years this was hard to accept, and it was really painful in some ways. — Mohammad Marandi

At face value, the U.S. Congress, there is a - they have a long way to go before they fully appreciate and understand Iranian people. — Hassan Rouhani

When it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table ... That includes all elements of American power: a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored, an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency. — Barack Obama

Allan had never imagined it would be easy to cross the Himalayas. But later he had realised just how lucky he had been to bump into those kind Iranian communists. It — Jonas Jonasson

I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles ... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran. — Shimon Peres

I can tell the negotiators, please, when you consider all the options, do not be constrained by the risk of an oil embargo on Iranian oil. — Claude Mandil

Given the genocidal belligerence of Iranian threats against Israel, it is hard to take issue with Israel's right to preemptive self-defense. — Conrad Black

In Islam, democracy is included and people are free in Islam, both in expressing their opinions and their actions, until there is no conspiracy and they don't bring up ideas which would deviate Iranian generation. — Ruhollah Khomeini

I searched modern fiction and poetry for clues to how we confronted and evaded reality, how we articulated our experience and turned to language not to revel ourselves but to hide. I was as sure then as I am now that by looking at contemporary Iranian fiction I could gain access to a real understanding of political and social events. (p289) — Azar Nafisi

Magical realism allows an artist like myself to inject layers of meaning without being obvious. In American culture, where there is freedom of expression, this approach may seem forced, unnecessary and misunderstood. But this system of communication has become very Iranian. — Shirin Neshat

We [The United States] believe the Iranian people want a future of freedom and human rights: the right to vote, to run for office, to express their views without fear and to pursue political causes. We would welcome the progress, prosperity and freedom of the Iranian people. — Condoleezza Rice

Lower oil prices won't, by themselves, topple the mullahs in Iran. But it's significant that, historically, when oil prices have been low, Iranian reformers have been ascendant and radicals relatively subdued, and vice versa when prices have been high. — James Surowiecki

When you think about Twitter and you think what a dumb stupid throwaway technology, and then you have the Iranian elections and it actually saves the day - you can't prejudge technologies now because they have effects you may not have intended. — Douglas Coupland

My dad is a gentle and brilliant Iranian violinist. — Ottessa Moshfegh

The doors had a peephole, and periodically an Iranian guard would look through and choose who he would let in. It was a bit like waiting to be picked for a sports team at school. You stand there trying to look as useful as possible to the two kids lucky enough to have been chosen as captains. If they were picking you for footy you tried to look as tough as possible. For basketball, you tried to look as tall as possible. For cricket, as long-suffering and patient as possible. That day, every time the guard looked through the peephole, I tried to look as un-Great Satan-like as I could. — Peter Moore

The Iranian regime calls for the annihilation of Israel, it oppresses its own citizens, it's part of the murder going on in Syria and it's building an atomic bomb. — Mark Regev

The international community is unwilling to accept the policies of the Iranian regime. — Moshe Katsav

As president, I decided that a strong, confident America could advance our national security by engaging directly with the Iranian government. We've seen the results. — Barack Obama

Show me one Iranian diplomat we killed! I can show you many Saudi diplomats who were killed by Iran. — Adel Al-Jubeir

Columbia students called me a baby killer, but remained silent for Ahmadinejad. I'm not sure if that was out of fear for the Iranian president or admiration. — Matt Sanchez

Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, they all have ties to Iranian money. I think they are the biggest exist - existential threat. Russia could be up there, but it would probably be to one of our NATO allies rather than the homeland. — Eric Bolling

Only one American has given his life for Iranian democracy. He was a young idealist from Nebraska named Howard Baskerville. In 1907, fresh out of Princeton, Baskerville went to Iran as a schoolteacher. He found himself in the midst of a revolution against tyranny, and was carried away with passion for the democratic cause. — Stephen Kinzer

James Buchan's The Persian Bride combines a moving love story, a political thriller, and a history of modern Iran in a beautiful novel about the relationship of two people caught up in the Iranian revolution: John Pitt, a young man from England who arrives in Isfahan, Iran, in 1974, and seventeen-year-old Shirin, one of John's students, whose father is a general in the shah's army. — Nancy Pearl

We are convinced that the only way to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue is through negotiations. — Sergei Lavrov

Under Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq possessed and used chemical weapons against both their own Kurdish population and Iranian military forces. — Charles B. Rangel

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain. — Steven Pinker

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus' - blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. — Noam Chomsky

Incidentally, Modi also attracted immense interest from overseas groups led by industrialists as big as French-Iranian billionaire Pierre Morad Omidyar, who founded eBay. He is rumoured to have funded Modi's elections. Jayant Sinha, a former Omidyar Network partner, is now a junior minister in the Modi government. — Ullekh NP

So Ahmadinejad wants to be the first Iranian in space - wasn't he there just last week? 'Iran launches monkey into space.' — John McCain

Poetry, especially traditional Iranian poetry, is very good at looking at things from a number of different angles simultaneously. — Asghar Farhadi

In 1907, Britain and Russia signed a treaty dividing Iran between them; no Iranian was at the negotiations or even knew they were taking place. — Stephen Kinzer

This visa-waiver thing is absurd. Has anybody in the West been targeted by any Iranian national, anybody of Iranian origin, or anyone travelling to Iran? Whereas many people have been targeted by the nationals of your allies, people visiting your allies, and people transiting the territory of, again, your allies. So you're looking at the wrong address. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Iranian belief in themselves as a civilization rather than a territorially limited nation. — Ali Ansari

When our sailors in the Persian Gulf accidentally strayed into Iranian waters, that could have sparked a major international incident. Some folks here in Washington rushed to declare that it was the start of another hostage crisis. Instead, we worked directly with the Iranian government and secured the release of our sailors in less than 24 hours. — Barack Obama

There may be obstacles, but money is not one," the Iranian said.
"Good. Money is usually an obstacle if you don't have it. — Sebastian Rotella

The New York Police Department says Iran has conducted surveillance inside New York City. They say Iranian operatives are using special mobile surveillance units. I believe they're called taxi cabs. — Jay Leno