My family restores my sense of ease and keeps me balanced.

It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from - if you put quality work out there, it will be appreciated.

What good is my parents' wealth and education and upbringing if I'm not contributing to the world?

As filmmakers, you're not working on just one project, you're producing something, directing something, shooting something, and so it becomes hard to do it by yourself.

I'd like to do a film in Canada, but it's too difficult. National Film Board funding takes too long, and there's too much paperwork; by the time the film is approved the topic is dead and gone.

I became a documentary filmmaker because I wanted to make socially conscious films. I never studied filmmaking - everything I have learned has been on the field.

I hope I can make Pakistan proud by bringing home an Oscar.

By bringing the voices of the ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges to television screens around the world, I hope to affect change in one community at a time.

The Pakistani government and its allies must overhaul their policies in Pakistan.

An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of.

Don't give up your dreams.

Austerity, if I were to define, I'll say, It's YOU.

Trying is fine. Failing is inevitable. Don’t let it devour you.

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliban.

Hillary Clinton, all talk. Unfortunately when there is action it's always the wrong decision.

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

Destiny's Child literally taught me how to sing.

Tattoos are interesting, but at the same time they are also a mask - you are exhibiting your past life on your body.

You just can't imagine the kind of guy he was without seeing him play. He was a circus, a play, a movie, all rolled into one.

If you only have work clothes - the black trouser and ribbed turtleneck you got four years ago at the Gap - you're not participating in your own style personality.