“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be.”

The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.

We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.

Luck is believing you’re lucky.

At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.

There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!

Something in me will save me from utter ruin no matter what comes.

I don’t believe in villains or heroes, only in right or wrong ways that individuals are taken, not by choice, but by necessity or by certain still uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances and their antecedents.

I can’t expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself.

There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice.

Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.

Physical beauty is passing – a transitory possession – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart – I have all these things – aren’t taken away but grow! Increase with the years!

Guessing isn’t knowing.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.

Nobody sees anybody truly, but all through the flaws of their own ego.

Oh you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you

Vanity, fear, desire, competition – all such distortions within our own egos – condition our vision of those in relation to us.

I will be rich or I will die trying.

Just ’cause something’s popular, it can still be good. In fact, if more people are buying it, then you must be doing something right.

Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.

To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.

It will soon be 25 years from the date of publication of my first research work. That the scientific aspirations kindled by that early work did not suffer extinction has been due entirely to the opportunities provided for me by the great city of Calcutta.

We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong.

It will not be an activity in which all people can participate.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.