I don't understand these national awards, because half of those who sit in judgement over Indian films do not... possess the competence to evaluate a film correctly.

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.

Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.

My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.

There's always some room for improvisation.

Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.

When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting

It was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn't want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical.

With Cosmic Ordering it’s not only your wealth that grows, your mind does too!

I’ve never quite understood why the knuckleheads of the planet so outnumber the rest of us.

If we're talking about masculinity and tenderness, I don't look at Clinton.

This is a fierce bad rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.

The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition.

To have you here, you mean-in reach and yet out of reach? To meet you in this way, on the sly? It's the very reverse of what I want.

To learn is to change.

So basically your plan is to flail about helplessly.

In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.

The one man in the room who was as big as his poems, huge, with hulk and dynamic chunks of words.