Quotes from Gulzar

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!

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

Poetry is not about personal pain or tragedy. It should resonate the society's grief.

I wasn't happy with Tagore's own translations in English. Maybe he was, but I wasn't, so I took it upon myself to do it.

I think translations should convey the feelings expressed in the original work. This is what I have believed in and practised.

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.

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

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.

People mostly associate Tagore only with Gitanjali. That is the mistake they make. Gitanjali is just one per cent of his oeuvre.

It is good to be well connected with English language, literature and history, but the knowledge of our culture and roots is equally important.

Fear comes from your past observations. That fear settles inside you. It becomes your psyche. Something triggers it and it fuels that subconscious. There is no logic to it.

The poetry of India can be truly known only through scanning the poetry of all languages.

Even 150 years of the first war of Independence was marked with a series of programs, but somehow the Jallianwala Bagh incident hasn't been given the attention it deserves.

I am very happy with 'Jai Ho' from 'Slumdog Millionaire' getting the Golden Globe. It means a lot for Indians and the music here.

When writers say that they need to 'set the mood' or 'get into the zone', those are all ways to procrastinate. Not prerequisites.

When it comes to our 'Jai ho,' the song became a super hit because of the composition of Rahman... He made the tune.

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

Let me say that discovering Tagore was the turning point of my life.

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

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

I often write about the moon, and more often than not, it is to symbolise a person, or a quality.

Cinema is not Bible writing. It doesn't teach you morals, good values to live. Cinema is not meant for that. If you're looking at cinema that it'll tell you good values then you're mistaken.

Time will change and with it music will too. Our speed has changed, clothes have changed, food habits have changed, so why should music remain the same?

Another reason I did not make films is that I liked being unemployed, since that is when I read, study and write.