Naseeruddin Shah

“I don't want any memorials or a grave which my children would have to look after or feel guilty about. I don't want to leave any trace except for the work I have done.”

“The film industry does not interest me greatly. The people, I don't mingle with them much. I meet them when I have to.”

“When we finally become total slaves of mobile phones, then maybe theatre will die.”

“An actor can never voice his opinion through films. All an actor does is convey what the director and writer want to say. You are a mouthpiece of their ideas. Your ideas reflect only in your...”

“There's so much hocus-pocus about acting styles; there's too much mysticism attached to it. But it's a craft like any other - it's something you have to work hard at.”

“You can't make a film for your personal satisfaction. That is why I detest the cinema of people like Mani Kaul.”

“From playwrights I had never heard of and performance forms I had never seen to sculpture and painting, I gained immense experience as an actor in National School of Drama (NSD). I discovere...”

“I have the highest regard for the police forces.”

“I am hard put to think of a single positive thing that commercial Hindi cinema has achieved.”

“Any youngster who comes to me and says he wants to act, I tell him to complete his education first because, for too long, uneducated actors have ruled the roost in the acting world.”

“I realise that I have made quite a few of the same mistakes with my kids that my dad made: not so much in trying to determine their lives for them but in terms of trying to discipline them.”

“What drew me into being an actor was that I never got cast in the school plays - and it used to kill me.”

“It is very tough to make a short film. It's like writing a short story, which is tougher than writing a novel. You can't afford to faff around; you can't indulge. You have to get to the poin...”

“Shakespeare is a seminal story-teller. I don't think he imagined he was writing classics or that he was writing great poetry. I don't think he dreamt his work would be staged 400 years after...”

“Granted, patriotism is not a tonic that can be forced down people's throats.”