Rajkumar Hirani Quotes

"For me, cinema is happiness."

"Filmmaking is a very collaborative art. Unlike a painting that an artist paints sitting by himself, as a director, you have to work with a team."

"I like Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Hrithik Roshan. I would love to work with them all."

"There's a big time influence Hrishikesh Mukherjee has always had on my work. I can watch 'Anand,' 'Golmaal' or 'Chupke Chupke' as many times as possible. I just really admire his kind of cinema."

"In terms of films, I don't like to show pain. I'd like to show hope."

"Film-makers are greedy people - we want good stories and good subjects."

"Vidhu Vinod Chopra is the only man I see around who makes films because he thinks 'this is a story that needs to be told, so let's tell it.'"

"One must always attempt to make good films, even if you fail it is ok. It is a journey, you have both good and bad days."

"Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who has produced my earlier films, is still a part of 'PK' and is presenting it. He is not a hands-on producer - he used to put a certain amount in the bank and give me the cheque book."

"I completely work on the basis of my intuition. I don't think I premeditate a success formula. There is no formula to make a successful film."

"It takes time to write a script and properly make the film and edit it."

"As writers, we are sketching people all the time when we write fiction."

"When you focus on your own work, it all falls in place. People respect you."

"Bad choices make good stories."

"Assuming audiences to be dumb, that's a big fallacy."

"Without its roots in reality, I don't think escapism can survive."

"PK' is a very unique story. There are no benchmarks in Hindi cinema to give you an idea about 'PK.'"

"I have the highest respect for the concept of 'Advait' - the oneness of all humans - that is central to Indian culture, thought, and religion."

"Editing is a meditative process. I enjoy it the most. I am not dealing with 200 people."

"I edit as I write and shoot. Any extra line, any pause that I know will get chopped on the editing table is done away with then and there."

"Someday I want to really talk about religion and blind faith. I explored astrologers, palmistry etcetra at length till I believed it was a scam. Even in '3 Idiots' I take a dig at them."

"Writing is a lonely process."

"The only time you do not get nervous is when you are making your first film. At that time, just the joy of making a movie is so high that you do not care; you are happy to have finally made it. It is only later that you want your film to be seen and appreciated by people."

"With fiction, you can do whatever you want to, but if you are making a film on someone, you have to stick to the truth. You cannot just say that I will change the climax because I do not like it."

"After I finish any film, I move to the next one. It takes about a year to write and another six months are for pre-production and other things. You need a minimum of two-and-a-half months for the shooting of a new film. Then, I also edit my own film."

"Films have to find a way to compress many anecdotes into one, or many events into one. Otherwise there is no way to tell it in two and a half hours."

"But I don't think as film-makers it is our responsibility that every time we make a film we should be saying something. If you are entertaining people, that's more than enough."

"See, most films are about achievers. You see a film like 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' or 'Dhoni.' Even 'Gandhi,' or the biopic on Lincoln. They end in triumph, on a high."

"I grew up in Nagpur, and I first started enjoying the author Harishankar Parsai. He wrote mostly satire, essays on the current situation and social issues. He wrote many books and I think he was my first influence."

"In non-fiction, I like Wayne Dyer. I have a compilation of his best quotes near my bed! To me he's one of the finest authors."