Mira Nair Quotes

We have three generations at home, including my father-in-law.

I keep a very low profile, and a lot of things I do are very much with the family in mind. I have actually made films with the family around me.

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.

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.

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

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.

I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards.

I always dreamed of the world.

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

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.

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.'

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.

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

What is really important to me is a sense of humour and a mischief about life.

Life is just too boring otherwise.

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.

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.

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.

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