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

In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.

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.

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

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.

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.

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