Today the name of America has a magic meaning for the most distant commmunities of the world.

I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years' time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today. In twenty years' time we shall be ahead of the United States.

My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, health, culture, affluence, comfort.

To be first in the Middle East is not enough. We must raise ourselves to the level of a great world power.

Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

Muslim brothers be damned; they're our greatest enemies. You know yourself that I'm a Muslim, even a fanatical Muslim. But that does nothing to alter my opinion of the Arabs.

Thank God we in Iran have neither the desire nor the need to suffer from democracy.

My advisers built a wall between myself and my people. I didn't realize what was happening. When I woke up, I had lost my people.

Nobody can influence me, nobody. Still less a woman. Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and charming and keep their femininity.

They want liberalization! I'll give them liberalization. I'll loosen the screws until the Americans beg me to tighten them again.

There was no luck. There was only preparation meets opportunity, and recognizing the latter and knowing when to seize it was ninety percent of any great success.

It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.

I like grass, I enjoy it and it suits my game.

The Shuttle is to space flight what Lindbergh was to commercial aviation.

You know, I said in the U.N., I said to President Abbas, "Look, we're in the same city, we're in the same building, for God's sake, the U.N. Let 's just sit down and begin to talk peace."

I think that peacekeeping can do quite a lot, if they are given the right mandate with the commensurate resources to get the job done.

She knew words no one had ever heard of, and she used words every day that had been mainly dead or sleeping for hundreds of years.

I'm not sure at all about the current prog rock scene.

I think, in my life, there've been three times I've broken down into tears on a set because I was happy.

If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration of the pictures that are painted of Him.