I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.

I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis.

They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'

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

I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards. I always dreamed of the world.

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.

I want to question what the outside is and who defines it. I often find those that are considered to be on the outside extremely inspiring.

Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.

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.

I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.

'No words - action' was the lesson my mother taught me: as artists, we have the privilege of holding a mirror to the world, to engage, to question, to bring beauty to a complex universe.

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

A lot of us feel that we are against the war; we are against profiling and are against what is happening. We are tired of war in every manifestation. American people do not all believe in what the government has been doing.

Americans are not used to being bombed in their beds, but if you come from anywhere outside America, it's not highly unusual.

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.

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.

Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.

Either you're this, or you're that: either you're - if you're a Pakistani, you're a terrorist; if you're an American, you might be a militarist. Those kind of prisms that we see each other through are really stultifying, and they don't often show the complexity and the incredible warmth and encompassing of the world.

Every film is a political act; it's how you see the world.

Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.

For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films.

From Vietnam's 'Deer Hunter' to Iraq, films are never about the person who has had his house destroyed.

Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.

I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to see themselves on screen, and it is a white male world. Still, it does feel like America is waking up. Let's hope it's the start of an avalanche.

I am actually a resident of three worlds - of America, of India, and of Africa. I live in Uganda most of the year. It's extraordinary to have that worldview that is an expansive one rather than just looking at the world from where you sit.

I am at home in many cultures. I live actively in three continents and I've done that for most of my life, so I just make films as I see the world, and that happens to speak to people. I do things that I want to do.

I am still attracted to stories about people who are considered to be on the outside of society. I still seek inspiration from those stories.

I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a narrative in the editing room.

I don't think boldness should be associated with showing off skin. It's not the basis of boldness.

I don't want to say that we are the world in that we are not distinct from each other. I want to say that the humanity that is our foundation is common, but my culture, my beliefs, my values, what makes me sing and what makes me happy and the language I speak in and the relationships I have in the world are distinctive.

I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.

I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion... Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game - a confidence game.

I listen to music deeply and seriously for at least an hour or two a day.

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.

I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work.

I think I am kind of put on this Earth to speak of being between worlds in my films.

I think films have to reach people and really grab them. That's what I hope to do when I make a film - to get under your skin and really make you think about something, and have a transporting time that takes you somewhere.

I think optimism springs from nature. I'm a gardener. Nature has taught me about rhythm, the essence of every art. With so much that is terrible, nature gives me pleasure.

I think there's a level of ignorance, when, in the callowness of youth, you imagine that you are inventing the world for the first time. You imagine that your parents don't know what it feels like to fall in love.

I'm a self-taught landscape gardener; it's a real passion of mine. It's what I do in my spare time because trees don't ask questions!

I'm inspired by people that are marginal. I'm excited by their resilience.

I'm not interested in passion and love for their own sake - without the struggle of life, they're just fluff.

I've been able to look at the world differently from three continents practically. I've always lived between India and the U.S. When I married Mahmood I became a daughter-in-law of Africa. That really changed my worldview. I can see it from so many perspectives.

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.

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

In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.

In Uganda, I am surrounded, unfortunately, by evangelicals; I can't bear it. Every night I hear the chants of Baptists urging people to be born again.

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