My films are motivated by a keen interest in highlighting issues that affect marginalized populations who are caught in difficult circumstances.

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.

The worst food you'll ever eat will probably be prepared by a 'cook' who calls himself a 'chef.' Mark my words.

Arterial-plaque specials that save minutes now can cost years, later on.

Some children are afraid to die because their parents are afraid to die. My own children have come to understand that it's totally okay with me if they die. They don't have to live for my sake.

But in the former, those movie sets that you've been on like that, even if they're huge movies and most of its being spent in special effects afterwards, I think that's the way that we're going.

If one sits down and concentrates on imagining the worst possible surroundings for rehearsing a musical show, it's never as bad as the rehearsal rooms one actually lands in.

When there's writing that you really trust, it's very freeing as an artist.

It's definitely an influence, I mean how can you not say you are influenced to play rock.

Idolatry is when you become the source of your own joy. Poverty of spirit is a wonderful thing.

It’s not in the nature of the lamb to mourn the lion.

When we change the message of God, we change the God of the message.