Abbas Kiarostami Quotes

The death penalty is becoming a way of life in this country.

The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent?

Everybody believes that capital punishment is wrong, but when they look at certain cases, they're quick to say, 'Put them to death,' or scream 'capital punishment.'

It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.

I was personally opposed to the death penalty, and yet I think I have probably asked for the death penalty more than most people in the United States.

If we as a society are willing to take human life, then we should be willing to watch it being taken.

I don't know what my Death Row meal would be. I'm surprised that people can even eat when they're on Death Row.

All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death.

Most people are not affected by [the death penalty]. It's like how many people are actually sent to Iraq and Afghanistan? Such a small percentage.

The sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. ... I fell morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, 'Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?' We knew the answer: No.

You have no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.

I don't think I would want the responsibility for enforcing the death penalties. There's always the inevitable question of whether someone you gave the order to execute might truly have been innocent.

I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error.

The death penalty is discriminatory and does not do anything about crime.

To have the truth in your possession you can be found guilty, sentenced to death.

I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery.

This death sentence is not surprising. It had to be.

I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.

Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty... mine's putting in an express lane.

Malcolm is worthy of death.

Most states in the union where the death penalty is theoretically on the books don't have executions.

When I signed on to letting the death penalty back in, I thought the procedural protections against executing an innocent person were stronger than they turned out to be.