Top 15 Marjane Satrapi Quotes

Life is too short to be lived badly.

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.

It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.

One can forgive but one should never forget.

To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart.

The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself:
Are my trousers long enough?
Is my veil in place?
Can my make-up be seen?
Are they going to whip me?

No longer asks herself:
Where is my freedom of thought?
Where is my freedom of speech?
My life, is it liveable?
What's going on in the political prisons?

I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.

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.

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.

Nothing's worse than saying goodbye. It's a little like dying.

I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.

Once again, I arrived at my usual conclusion: one must educate oneself.

We are focusing on the small details and hiding the misery in the world. Look at the smoker and we miss global warming, war, and the crap we eat — not the bad guys but smoking. I smoke and they talk about cancer, I eat and they talk about cholesterol, I make love, it's AIDS. Before AIDS and cholesterol and cancer there's the pleasure of making love and eating and smoking. I have to die someday, so if the thing that gave me pleasure all of my life kills me instead of me going under a truck, that's fine. Besides, why should I live so that when I die I give fresh meat to the worms? I hope that I am rotted and they don't want to eat me. F@#$ck the worms.

I had learned that you should always shout louder than your aggressor.

You are putting yourself in serious danger...'

I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist.