In making films, I'm constantly looking for people who are in conflict and who are going to surprise you and challenge you.

It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world.

I'll continue making films because I love being able to drop into other people's worlds. My goal is to be constantly learning.

I'm interested in characters that are complex people.

It's important in any project to remain focused.

I have actually been very fortunate to be able to make films on my own credit card without having huge funders behind me dictating how the story should be told.

When I hear the words 'activist filmmaking,' I think of somebody who's an activist, who wants to prove a particular point.

You know, Arabs are critical of United States foreign policy, but they also associate the U.S. with democratic principles and opportunity.

Al Jazeera is demonized by the United States, yet in Egypt my father would be watching it.

I've discovered I can't make a film about people I dislike.

Al Jazeera is one entity that everyone across the Arab world watches. Arabs are proud of that.

The hardest calling in our lives is to be truly ourselves.

And if it doesn't go like that?– Then all your problems will be over and you won't have a thing to worry.

In a burning building I would save a cat before a Rembrandt.

I can't begrudge anyone who opts to get a job instead of creating one for themselves.

By putting myself out there the way I've been doing people see me as a real person. Even though I do character voices and funny noises the stories are still real and I put them all out there.

'Tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest, or for their wit that one loves the wittiest; 'tis for benevolence, and virtue, and honest fondness, one loves people...

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

The United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region.

I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet--within the chambers of a quivering heart.

The mental pattern must always precede the material form.