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

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

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.

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.

thinking about tracking. . . . Sometime in grade school, already your fate was settled, your socialclass was established for the rest of your life.

What is gone is gone and will not come back. When the earth swallows, it swallows forever and we are left to stumble along feeling the absences. These are our burdens.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules

When you make mistakes during routines, it's not easy getting through them.

I gotta feel alive, even if it kills me. Promise to always give you me, the real me.

The English Puritans pulled down church and state to rebuild Zion on the ruins, and all the while it was not Zion, but America, they were building.

The true comic muse is the one with tears running down under her laughing mask.

What kills me makes others stronger.

I did a lot of theater growing up, and in college I was in the musical 'Chicago.'

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.