Mira Nair Quotes & Sayings

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.”