"The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days."

"I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation."

"Ever since Two Daughters I've been composing my own music."

"My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful."

"When I'm shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot - new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can't do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical."

"I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it."

"The director is the only person who knows what the film is about."

"What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure."

"When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century."

"The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves."

"I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time."

"I wouldn't mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they're not on a fixed salary."

"At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music."

"It was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn't want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical."

"I think they quite like me when I work because I'm one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don't bring their costs in back home, once they're shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs."

"I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music."