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

Never take no for answer, and try to make films that turn you on.

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.

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.

Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.

Bollywood actors are so set in what they want, and the way they want it. And why shouldn't they be? But it is not the same in Hollywood, because the love of the audience is not the same.

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.