Bombay Quotes

• 'Bombay Velvet' is my first film in a trilogy about Bombay, before it became a metropolis.

  Anurag Kashyap

  Velvet, Firsts, Film

  "First Poster: Ranbir Kapoor is Johnny Balraj in Bombay Velvet" by Stacey Yount, bollyspice.com. January 29, 2015.

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• More dreams are realised and extinguished in Bombay than any other place in India.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Dream, India, Realised

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• 'Salaam Bombay' didn't put a halo on the poor. Instead, it said that they will teach us how to live.

  Mira Nair

  Halos, Poor, Said

  "A Minute With: Mira Nair on Salaam Bombay". Interview with Shilpa Jamkhandikar, www.reuters.com. March 22, 2013.

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• Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.

  Satyajit Ray

  Morning, Two, Giving

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.100, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Having plenty of living space has to be the greatest luxury in a city, and I guess in some sense Bombay is the antithesis of what living in Canada must be.

  Aravind Adiga

  Cities, Luxury, Space

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• Well the Bombay film wasn't always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.

  Satyajit Ray

  Years, Film, Realistic

  Satyajit Ray (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”

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• Sometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can't leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.

  Satyajit Ray

  Directors, Three, Done

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.100, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.

  Satyajit Ray

  Class, Play, Cities

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.101, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay.

  Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

  India, Different, Might

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• The thing about Mumbai is you go five yards and all of human existence is revealed. It's an incredible cavalcade of life, and I love that.

  Julian Sands

  Yards, Mumbai, Incredibles

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have come here have not been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they came from, these people got up and moved. As I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving.

  Suketu Mehta

  New York, Moving, Somewhere Else

  Suketu Mehta (2006). “Maximum city: Bombay lost and found”, p.34, Penguin Books India

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• Here is the full list of the banned words I used: active homosexual; career women; Third World; blacks; Asians; Australasia; Bangalore; primitive African tribes; crippled; in a wheelchair; hare lip; ethnic minorities; handicapped; spinster; committed suicide; gypsies; Bombay; illegitimate daughter; air hostess; Siamese twins; Calcutta; deaf ears; illegal asylum seeker; province of Northern Ireland; grandmother; bachelor.

  Rod Liddle

  Daughter, Suicide, Grandmother

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• I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.

  Tahir Shah

  Travel, Poverty, Becoming

  FaceBook post by Tahir Shah from Apr 15, 2013

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• When I was in college, my brother, B.R. Chopra, who is everything to me, was a director in Bombay. He taught me filmmaking. What I am today is because of him.

  Yash Chopra

  Brother, College, Directors

  "The Scene" Interview, edition.cnn.com. October 3, 2006.

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• I'm drinking here break motor oil and Bombay gin, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

  Warren Zevon

  Drinking, Sleep, Oil

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• Traffic in the streets of Bombay is chaotic at best. Riding a bicycle is a dangerous occupation. However, there are hundreds of them on the streets competing with the cars and buses and lorries because it is the poor man's mode of transport.

  Rohinton Mistry

  Men, Car, Riding A Bicycle

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• All I did was write it down, one word after the other, beginning and ending with the same one, Bombay.

  Jeet Thayil

  Writing, Beginnings And Endings, One Word

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• When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog-big as a donkey. ... I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio. ... I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere. ... Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.

  Ray Davies

  Country, Dog, Song

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• Flying has changed how we imagine our planet, which we have seen whole from space, so that even the farthest nations are ecological neighbors. It has changed our ideas about time. When you can gird the earth at 1,000 m.p.h., how can you endure the tardiness of a plumber? Most of all, flying has changed our sense of our body, the personal space in which we live, now elastic and swift. I could be in Bombay for afternoon tea if I wished. My body isn't limited by its own weaknesses; it can rush through space.

  Diane Ackerman

  Ideas, Space, Flying

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• And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand that is reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Brahmin or untouchable or whether you were born in this city or arrived only this morning or whether you live in Malabar Hill or New York or Jogeshwari; whether you’re from Bombay or Mumbai or New York. All they know is that you’re trying to get to the city of gold, and that’s enough. Come on board, they say. We’ll adjust.

  Suketu Mehta

  Christian, Morning, New York

  "Bombay can take it" by Salil Tripathi, www.theguardian.com. July 12, 2006.

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• I found Bombay and opium, the drug and the city, the city of opium and the drug Bombay

  Jeet Thayil

  Cities, Drug, Found

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• Some would assert that Providence was at work shaking out its pockets in Humanity's lap. Other would argue for that mindless choreographer, Chance. Either way it was a simple thing: a lost diary fell into the hands of a soul-sick war hero on a train from Bombay to Jaipur just when he'd grown tired of the scenery and needed something to keep his thoughts from the minefield of his wretched thoughts. In such mild ways is the groundwork laid for first kisses and ruined lives.

  Laini Taylor

  War, Hero, Tired

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• I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world.

  Salman Rushdie

  School, Adventure, World

  "A translated man". Interview with James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2006.

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• In the '50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn't feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me.

  Salman Rushdie

  Growing Up, Kids, Class

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• George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker.

  Will Rogers

  Inspirational, War, Long

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