My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people.

Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.

If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.

Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.

It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

What is really important to me is a sense of humour and a mischief about life. Life is just too boring otherwise.

We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.

We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.

I am still attracted to stories about people who are considered to be on the outside of society. I still seek inspiration from those stories.

I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.

Character is power.

What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to the mind? Our unity is full of wonder which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive.

I really do believe that education, despite this massive potential in transforming human lives, has not received the kind of attention that people should have given to it.

I feel I lost my innocence to cancer.

We gotta stop smokin', stop, stop. I mean cigarette smoking.

I just hope that the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people prevails. If it does we must move quickly to help restore stability and prosperity.

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.

It's kind of fun to listen to Christians who say: I'm a New Testament Christian. What other kind of Christian is there?

The disciplinary power that inscribes femininity in the female body is everywhere and it is nowhere; the disciplinarian is everyone and yet no one in particular.

My dream job would be a lawyer. I can talk my way out of anything, and I love cross-examining people. I think I'd be a really good lawyer.