Mira Nair Quotes

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

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.

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

It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

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.

What is really important to me is a sense of humour and a mischief about life. Life is just too boring otherwise.

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

We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying 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.

Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.

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

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

Marriage of attraction is a gamble anyway, so you might as well marry into a family that is similar to your own, and make that much less of an adjustment. But the 'love marriage', as it is called, is equally common in India now. But it would be interesting to do a comparison of what would work better. Marriage is hard work, and it is a gamble.

My films, no one else will do.

It gave me a lot of pleasure and pride that 90 percent of the crew for 'Monsoon Wedding,' and most of my film, are women. We get the work done, you know, much lesser play of ego... And I really believe in harmony, I believe in working in a spirit of egolessness and that the film is bigger than all of us.

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

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

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.

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

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

Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.

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've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

You've got to understand that in Bollywood, every actor is an instrument, and yet a human being. They come to the set with a set agenda, believing, 'This is who I am, this is what I want, and no, I am not going to become that character you want me to.'

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.