I had the urge to face my own limitation, and I needed to be bigger. I needed to be more professional and be in a more competitive environment because I wanted to grow as an artist. That's why I went to Europe.

It's interesting to be at once an insider and outsider. It's a way of learning how to find your way freely without the need of conforming or belonging.

For me, a taxi is like a public space because so many people get in that space.

The Arab world is mediatised in a way that gives too much space to these people - puritans, extremists, whatever you want to call them. There are a lot more people like me in the Middle East than you might think.

Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.

I grew up during the Revolution of Iran and the war between Iran and Iraq. The things that I saw. The impact. How it changes you. How it changes the way you look at the world.

The havoc wrought by war, which one compares with the havoc wrought by nature, is not an unavoidable fate before which man stands helpless. The natural forces that are the cause of war are human passions, which it lies in our power to change. What are culture and civilization if not the taming of blind forces within us as well as in nature?

If peace only had the music and pageantry of war, there'd be no wars.