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

I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.

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

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.

'Salaam Bombay' didn't put a halo on the poor. Instead, it said that they will teach us how to live.

I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us how to see the world in that sense. They are without artifice; they see it for what it is. I am drawn to that ruthless honesty.