I believe in freedom, I'm for a world without borders. But that's an ideal. On a practical level, I'm for a secular state where religion only plays a minor role.

The future belongs to us. I think that art is a force that can change the world.

Nothing is allowed in public, while everything is permitted behind closed doors.

The most important element of democracy, I believe, is the protection of minorities.

My family thought if I spent time in the military, I'd become more reasonable, a bit calmer. But I've always been extreme in what I do - both as a believer and a nonbeliever.

I was a very devout boy and one day I heard the music of an Egyptian Koran singer in the mosque. The melancholy of this music touched me so deeply that it brought me to tears.

Fundamentalists can't take a joke. Ever. They want us to blindly obey, parrot everything they do, and believe in their dogmas.

I'm a musician; I have to perform. I can't give up. I have to be even more courageous. We know that we have a lot of enemies. Not only in Iran. But that doesn't matter.

I lived in the world of poetry and ideas. I thought life was all about art and philosophy. In the military, I suddenly found out about the real world.

The powerful hate truth that put them in bad light

Values offer focus amidst the chaos.

Buried emotions are caged nighthawks that have fallen in love with the moon. They don’t understand the sun because they were born with the darkness of shadows in their soul.

Don’t sleep too much. If you sleep 3 hours less each night for a year, you will have an extra month and a half to succeed in.

I love shocking people.

I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit.

Moonshiners put more time, energy, thought, and love into their cars than any racer ever will. Lose on the track, and you go home. Lose with a load of whiskey, and you go to jail.

Christ wants to slay reason and subdue the arrogance of the Jews.

I'm not as well read as I was when I was younger - I just devoured books.

It doesn't matter where I am; I'm yours.