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"Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity."
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"We must stop expecting the government to play the role of national transformation why we sit down and watch."

"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly, the rich have always objected to being governed at all."

"Popular medicine and popular morality belong together and ought not to be evaluated so differently as they still are: both are the most dangerous pseudo-sciences."

"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night."

"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."

"Your water is in the bottles, and my water is in the bucket, but we are brothers? I am collecting garbage, and you are in the bed, but we are sisters? My fingers are broken, and your hands are so soft, but we are family? Your God is like an angel, and my God is like an evil, but we are equal? My stomach is empty, and your stomach is so big, but we are humans?"

"PLEASE and THANK YOU...two polite phrases which are slowly disappearing from our vocabulary."
Explore more quotes by Mohsen Makhmalbaf

"The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan."

"In many ways, it is very real, because I sat there for 9 days, and it was constantly happening, and that was the 9 days of making the film. But you can't say that it's 100% true, because there are places where I've been intrusive and interfered."

"Five years ago, Samira did not want to continue in the regular school system in Iran. To help her with her education, I set up a home school. It wasn't just for my family, it was open to other friends."

"I've heard about brothers making films, but I've never heard about whole families making films like this. We didn't intend to do it; it wasn't something that we planned - it just gradually happened."

"I'm not playing myself. It's a symbolic situation, where I want to introduce a fascist behind the table. I couldn't have had anybody else do that; for it to be successful, I had to do it myself."

"In Afghanistan, this is the problem, because everybody holds a piece of that mirror, and they all look at it and claim that they hold the entire truth."

"A problem was the lack of cooperation of the Afghan community itself. The women, though living in Iran, were under cover and not willing to participate in the film, and none of the ethnic groups were willing to work together or be together."

"Do you know that every day, 10 people in Afghanistan are injured by landmines? It will continue for the next 50 years, because the country has the largest number of landmines in the world."
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