Mira Nair quotes

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. (Mira Nair)
I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.
Mira Nair
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.
Mira Nair
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.
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
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.'
Mira Nair
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.
Mira Nair
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.
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 human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.
Mira Nair
Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.
Mira Nair
Never take no for answer, and try to make films that turn you on. (Mira Nair)
In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.
Mira Nair
It took me three years to learn to dress in the American way, especially in winter. That was just like me. I barely wear socks even now.
Mira Nair
Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.
Mira Nair
Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.
Mira Nair
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.
Mira Nair
Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.
Mira Nair
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.
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 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.'
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
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. (Mira Nair)
I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.
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
My films, no one else will do.
Mira Nair
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.
Mira Nair