The film-school mantra is that if you don't tell your own stories, nobody will.

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.

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 much stranger than fiction and, often, much more powerful.

I immediately was captured by 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist.' It gave me a springboard into contemporary Pakistan and a dialogue between Pakistan and the rest of the world.

Katwe is fifteen minutes from my home. It's entirely about knowing it from the inside. For instance, the incredible vibrancy of style. Kampala is the center of used clothing in the world. Everyone dresses in secondhand clothes, but they look astonishing for it.

Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.

We never see the fancy schools with the blazers and ties in films about Africa! But, in fact, we too have class and elitism.

I'm the bullheaded type, and I really don't give up if I fall in love.

My close friends call me the bulldozer who never says no. I have never not made a film.

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.

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.

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 dream of living off the land completely - in vain, because the monkeys eat everything.

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

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.

My films, no one else will do.

Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.

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

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

You have to want to be in the company of those you're making films about.

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.

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

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.

My family is vital to me - just the sense of being surrounded by no pretension.

'Queen of Katwe' is an absolutely true story. And it's wonderful. But it's not about saviors. Your only savior is yourself - but yourself with your community. It's never alone. You have to have someone who believes in you.

No one goes to Pakistan to make movies. You stick out.

I love the idea that it doesn't take one person only to achieve your potential. It takes a village, it takes a community, a street, a teacher, a mother.

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

Life is short, so I'm knowing exactly where I'm putting my time. I don't want to do things that I don't have to do.

'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.

We want the diversity of the world that is around us represented both in front of and behind the camera, and on our screens as a result.

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.

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.

When people break up, after sharing their entire souls with each other, I don't want to believe that you just switch off. There are remnants of melancholia, and there is so much that stays with you because you loved this person. Of course, it's that much more complicated when it's an interracial love or love from a person from another culture.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

We have not learned the lessons of 9/11. This wrongful suspicion, racial hatred, and profiling is what I keep seeing.

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.