There is a ban on Indian films in Pakistan, so that's half of our market gone.

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

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's not my fault I can't be like you, okay? I don't get up in the morning thinking the world is one big, shiny, happy place, okay? That's just not how I work. I don't think I can be fixed.

We're at peak oil, peak water, peak resources, and so either we figure it out and let science lead or we head down a very bad, dark trail to where a lot of people aren't going to make it.

I do so much music that it's like a fog, and I can't even remember all of it.

Life is full of opportunities to feel exactly the way you want to feel.

Translation is not appropriation, as is sometimes claimed; it is a form of listening that then changes how you speak.

I know you have a hundred complex cases against God in court, but never mind, let's just get out of this mess.

A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe.

No one is going to pay much attention to the person who has no confidence in himself.

I don't have a driving desire to be all encompassing and world powerful or anything.

I wouldn't necessarily have been making books about how to make comics if I'd really felt I knew how to make comics.