Marjane Satrapi famous quotes

06-17-2025

In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Hurt #Stupid #Bitterness
I'm someone who lived in a war for five years. I received bombs on my head every day of my childhood. Did that stop me from living? Did that stop me from laughing?
-- Marjane Satrapi

#War #Years #Laughing
If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Country #Differences #Government
I was a child who had a life, who had hopes, and I wished that a bomb would not fall on my head.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Children #Fall #Bombs
Life is too short to be lived badly.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Life Is Too Short #Life Is #Too Short
Adaptation of books is never a success. When the author wants to make it, it's even worse.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Book #Want #Adaptation
My mother always told me I had to do 100 times better than a man. I had to work hard at maths, and learn four languages.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Mother #Hard Work #Math
I wanted to make a real love story with a bad ending, because a love story that ends good is the life of everyone. I always say to people, You know, if Romeo and Juliet got married, nobody would care about them. Imagine Romeo and Juliet, six kids yelling, mama, mama, papa, papa.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Real #Kids #Yelling
You know, they say in France that translation is like a woman: she is either beautiful or faithful.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Beautiful #Faithful #France
Imagine if I cannot stand someone and every day he is here in my face, then I cannot work. Then, the whole time, I am thinking "I hate him, I hate him." But if I love him or I love her, then I can do anything, then I am comfortable. That's why it's so important to be surrounded by people that you really like.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Hate #I Love Him #Thinking
Image is an international language.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Language
I'm not somebody that keeps the thing in her heart. I can get very angry for five minutes, but then it's finished. Once I've yelled, it's over.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Heart #Minutes #Angry
When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Fear #Reflection #Analysis
I think the best work of the director is to listen to what all the technicians around him have to say, but then the thing is to take the best decision, what you think is the best. Then, that is the moment where you have to have all the film in your head and imagine how all of that will fit together.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Thinking #Decision #Together
All big changes of the world come from words.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#World #Bigs
Of course, when you remember your life, you never remember anything in a chronological way. You always have pieces of memories, and some of these memories are full of details and very colorful. Some of them you just see the action and it's completely blank.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Memories #Pieces #Way
We can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable. Once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Sorry #Laughing #Way
I realized that I was more of a sprinter than a marathon man. With a long, long project, I get bored easily.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Men #Bored #Long
One can forgive but one should never forget.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Forgiving #Never Forget #Forget
Business is very personal. For me, everything is extremely personal. With actors, the fact that I write helps, because when you say to an actor "Oh I want you to do it a little bit more ...," without saying what you want more of, then the actor doesn't know what to do. But if you can put into words exactly what you want, then the experience of writing is helpful with that.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Writing #Actors #Want
The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#People #Answers #Should
I chose the actors that I was in love with. I cannot work with people that I don't personally like a lot. They can be the best actor in the world, but if the first contact is not good, if I don't fall in love with them, then I don't want to work with them. It's impossible.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Falling In Love #People #Actors
The language in a comic book or a graphic novel and the cinematographic language are really not the same language. They are false brother and sister. It's not at all the same.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Brother #Book #Language
Drawing - it's the first language of human beings, before writing, before even talking, before words, human beings was drawing.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Writing #Drawing #Talking
I try to look at life carefully and reproduce life the way life is. It's a question of looking carefully at how it is. In life, you don't have total happiness. People always say that. But you don't have total sadness either, no matter what situation you are living in.
-- Marjane Satrapi

#Sadness #People #Trying

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