Anything anybody's used, a comb, a lock of hair, a drop of sweat, anything that comes from somebody's body has incredible magical power.

Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.

What I like about the '60s movies was that they were about women. They were telling women's stories. I think a lot of movies don't tell women's stories anymore.

I've always loved movies dealing with the terror of a woman who doesn't really know her husband and finds out that he's a monster. It's one of my favorite plots.

When men create movies about femme fatales, it really is always about how that female can destroy that male. It's not really about what's happening on the interior of that female.

Men's requirements of women are impossible and ridiculous and so destructive.

I feel like that's how women feel in a way. You can get paranoid because everyone actually is a conspiracy to diminish your power.

Every time I get criticism from people, I learn from it and what to do the next time so there are fewer misconceptions. I'm continuing to be socialized as a woman, but also as a filmmaker.

The more that I see the sexism and misogyny that's coming at me from every direction, the less I think my films have anything to do with sexploitation.

I think glamour is a female thing. I don't think that's a male fantasy. I think glamour's a female fantasy.

We women have gained so many more things, but we lost that kind of sexual power, the glamour power. We still love women who can still do that in culture.

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake.

Why don’t you dare the impossible?

Don't be discouraged by writer's block. Writer's block just means you need to listen to other music.

It's a paradise that we are going to go into, because to be in the presence of God itself will be a paradise.

The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.

When creatively passionate people get together to start a company, the energy and camaraderie is really pretty stimulating.

I love this idea of trying to create that intellectual eroticism. That was what I was working toward all along.

A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.