Gulzar

“In film lyrics, I avoid Persianised words because they are not widely understood.”

“A writer will not keep quiet. He will express his opinion through writings.”

“If a film promotes communal harmony, which for me is beyond religion, I am happy to work on it because the film's premise is in line with my beliefs.”

“I am a greedy poet. I keep munching life all the time. Sweet, sour and bitter moments.”

“I've always maintained that RD Burman and Sanjeev Kumar were my two anchors.”

“All day long I keep wishing, let partition be a past now. It should only remain a part of history.”

“Cinema has a large scope as it is a mirror of society and with the mindset changing, people are taking it more seriously.”

“I used to put black ink on the author's name in a book and write my name instead to check how it would look there - such was my passion!”

“A writer just speaks from his heart, mind and soul. They are the conscience keepers of the society. They are the keepers of the soul of the society.”

“When you find something that makes you feel that only you can do it and nobody else, then you automatically want to do it.”

“Look, when a song becomes a hit, it happens because of its tune and melody, and not for the lyrics in the first place.”

“I did not have a black coat to wear to the Oscars. It was a mandatory dress code, that was the reason I gave it a miss.”

“My country is India but my motherland remains Pakistan.”

“I am not here forever, so I wanted to do the best for the coming generation.”

“When you shake mercury it keeps trembling until it reaches a point when it stops. When you get me started on Partition, that is how I am. It goes back and keeps shaking me up, on and on.”

“In films, there is no scope to rectify any mistake... but in theatre, you can rectify it the next day.”

“I write in Urdu and everything is written by my hand.”

“There are many songs that have become popular and people sing along with it without knowing the meaning of its lyrics.”

“Translations are very important these days, since an average person can only know 2-3 three languages. We have so many languages in India and poems are being written in as many of them.”

“Being in the Sahitya Akademi, I did know quite a few poets - Jayanta Mahapatra, Sitakant Mahapatra, Sunil Gangopadhyay, to name a few. There were many poets.”