18 Quotes by Golshifteh Farahani

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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