I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.

Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.

If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.

Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.

It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

What is really important to me is a sense of humour and a mischief about life. Life is just too boring otherwise.

We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.

We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.

I am still attracted to stories about people who are considered to be on the outside of society. I still seek inspiration from those stories.

I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.

They're only memories, Sam. They might comfort us on days of self-loathing, but that's all. We have to consciously move forward.

There is no such thing as death In nature nothing dies: From each sad moment of decay Some forms of life arise.

People are searching for something they don't have in their lives. There's an unfulfilled need.

You have to be self-reliant and strong to survive in this town. Otherwise you will be destroyed.

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

If you consider, for example, that democracy is much like a religion then 9/11 is akin to finding the body of God.

Theatre is how I first encountered art on any level.

Regardless of what you plan on when you fall in love, significant others come and go in your life. Your friends are it. My friends are my everything.

When I play live, it's a conversation that we're all having with the song, and the audience... their response and relationship with the songs is as valid as my relationship with the songs.

It is a mistake to assume that if everybody does his job, it will be all right. The whole system may be in trouble.