Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.

Well the Bombay film wasn't always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful.

When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.

It was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn't want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical.

I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.

Ever since Two Daughters I've been composing my own music.

Sometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can't leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.

I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.

The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.

I wouldn't mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they're not on a fixed salary.

My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.

You cannot go beyond a certain limit in your expenditure if you want to bring back money from your local market, which is very small after Pakistan.

The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.

Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.

I think they quite like me when I work because I'm one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don't bring their costs in back home, once they're shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.

When I'm shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot - new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can't do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.

There's always some room for improvisation.

I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.

I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.

There is a ban on Indian films in Pakistan, so that's half of our market gone.

If the theme is simple, you can include a hundred details that create the illusion of actuality better.

A military childhood in the 1950s was very much informed by WWII. My brothers and I often heard stories from our dad - and from other kids - about things that had happened to their dads. We constantly played war games and, nearly every Saturday, saw a different WWII movie at the post theater.

I was on dialysis for 18 months before the transplant, so it was important I tried to look ahead to days like my comeback this Saturday. You need those big goals to drive you on.

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

It's really hard to get a coffee with someone. I have to call my agent, my agent calls their agent, their agent calls their manager, the manager calls back, the actor sends someone to the manager... then you get, 'Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have dinner at six,' and all I wanted was coffee! It can take, like, six days to get coffee.

I'm an only child, and I think one of the sweet things about that is that my parents are really interested in every aspect of my life.

I'm someone who does not like a bunker mentality and does not like groupthink.

This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

The best smell in the world is that man that you love.

I don't want people mistreating me. I found out when you're vulnerable and your heart's open, then people step on you. You're really stupid for letting that happen. And the only way to counteract that is to be like Wolfman Jack. Because if you do nice, kind things for people, then how are they going to mess you over?

Relationships take up energy letting go of them psychiatrists theorize entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it.

On Earth Day we celebrate all the gifts the world and nature make available to us. We recognize our complete dependence on its bounty. And we acknowledge the need for good stewardship to preserve its fruits for future generations.

I didn't have the safety net that a lot of young actresses have. A lot of young girls have their families around to support them and help choose wisely.

If you want to burrow a message into a human mind. Work it into a story.

It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?

In 'Hardflip,' you have a relationship where the father and son haven't seen each other in 18 years, but they find they're very alike: pigheaded, stubborn, passionate. It's a wonderful story of how you can't get away from how similar you and your children are.

I like drums, really, if they're under control.

All interpretations of history are propaganda for one idea or another.

I saw no reason why childhood shouldn't last forever. So I created clothes that worked and moved and allowed people to run, to jump, to leap, to retain their precious freedom.

Cancer is the most pernicious, insidious, disgusting disease of life.

It's not as if I've been unlucky. My books have been published and reviewed. I haven't lived through terrible literary suffering!

How can you interview somebody about something fairly technical if you start on the wrong foot by not even knowing his name?

I tend to place my own value in spirituality rather than religiosity.

I want to move people; it's not about me. I have been given the gift of being an entertainer. I love getting to touch people's lives.