“It's rare to find a woman filmmaker in Muslim society, and even rarer when she is an outspoken talent unafraid of controversy.”

“In a sane society no woman would be left to struggle on her own with the huge transformation that is motherhood, when a single individual finds herself joined by an invisible umbilical cord to another person from whom she will never be separated, even by death.”

“When she first emerged, she was celebrated as an example of how well religious integration was working in a country that has a Muslim president, a Sikh prime minister, and a Christian leader of its Congress party. The controversy over her clothes was seen as an absurdity by mainstream Muslim leaders.”

“Daisy was a consciously happy young woman without any of the usual endowments that make for conscious happiness, money apart. She was not pretty, she was not clever, she had no friends, no talents, nor even an imagination to make her think she was happy when she was really miserable. As she was never miserable, she had no need of an imagination.”

“What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”

“You cannot believe a woman, even when she is dead.”

“When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it.”

“Talents is a creation of society rather than a gift of nature; it is an accumulated capital of which the recipient is only the guardian. Without society, without education and powerful assistance which it gives, the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities even in the rare as where it ought to shine.”

“The duty of the scholar, of the educated man, of the man or woman whom society has developed talents in, the duty of that man or woman is to help build the society which has made their own advancement possible.”

“It is a very rare thing for a man of talent to succeed by his talent.”