From 7 in the morning to 11 at night, I was reading. I don't think one can find any other time in one's life to be left alone so much to read in peace like that.

Do you know that every day, 10 people in Afghanistan are injured by landmines? It will continue for the next 50 years, because the country has the largest number of landmines in the world.

The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan.

Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.

In many ways, it is very real, because I sat there for 9 days, and it was constantly happening, and that was the 9 days of making the film. But you can't say that it's 100% true, because there are places where I've been intrusive and interfered.

Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves.

I wanted to be left alone to live my life, so it was very easy for people to pretend that they were me.