Mira Nair

Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.

— Mira Nair

My films, no one else will do.

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards. I always dreamed of the world.

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a…

— Mira Nair

I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a…

— Mira Nair

With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost…

— Mira Nair

I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us…

— Mira Nair

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone.…

— Mira Nair

What's nice about what we have is when you enter the set, the world of film, it becomes this real cocoon, very…

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised…

— Mira Nair

Once 9/11 happened, people who looked like me and whose children looked like us and whose husbands looked of a community, really…

— Mira Nair

I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to…

— Mira Nair

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…

— Mira Nair

When people break up, after sharing their entire souls with each other, I don't want to believe that you just switch off.…

— Mira Nair

In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a…

— Mira Nair

I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which…

— Mira Nair

You've got to understand that in Bollywood, every actor is an instrument, and yet a human being. They come to the set…

— Mira Nair

It gave me a lot of pleasure and pride that 90 percent of the crew for 'Monsoon Wedding,' and most of my…

— Mira Nair

From Vietnam's 'Deer Hunter' to Iraq, films are never about the person who has had his house destroyed.

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair

Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.

— Mira Nair

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

— Mira Nair