60+ Satyajit Ray Quotes on Cinema, Life, and the Human Experience

Satyajit Ray quotes are known for their wit, wisdom, and insight. The celebrated Indian filmmaker, screenwriter, and author was renowned for his humanistic approach to cinema, and his words continue to inspire and inform filmmakers and audiences alike. Some of his most memorable quotes are showcased in this article.

27 Best Satyajit Ray Quotes to Remember the Pioneer of Modern Bengali Cinema

Check out these famous quotes by Satyajit Ray on art, filmmaking, and other aspects of art and cinema:

• [on Indian art] Indian art is not one thing. Indian art is so many different schools and styles. (Nevertheless) I think lyricism, the love of nature, the symbolic aspect of art (like showing rain in a few lines of dots in a Rajput miniature looking for the essence in natural forms and human forms and then going for the essence rather than the surface – that I think is primarily what distinguishes Indian art from Western art. Not just Indian art but Eastern art in general. Chinese and Japanese art also, if you come to think about it, have the same qualities as Indian art.
• [on whether or not he is a humanist] Not really. I can’t think of being anything else but what is represented by my films. I am not conscious of being a humanist. It’s simply that I am interested in human beings.
• At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.
• Ever since Two Daughters I’ve been composing my own music.
• I don’t understand these national awards, because half of those who sit in judgment over Indian films do not… possess the competence to evaluate a film correctly.
• I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.
• I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.
• I think they quite like me when I work because I’m one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don’t bring their costs in back home, once they’re shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.
• I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.
• I wouldn’t mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they’re not on a fixed salary.
• I’ve made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

• If the theme is simple, you can include a hundred details that create the illusion of actuality better.
• It was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn’t want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical.
• Last, but not least — in fact, this is most important — you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.
• MAMMOOTTY has presented an outstanding performance in film ‘New Delhi’.
• My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful.
• 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.
• Particularly in the final stages I always find that I’m rushed. It’s dangerous when you’re rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.
• Somehow I feel that an ordinary person–the man in the street if you like – is a more challenging subject for exploration than people in the heroic mold. It is the half shades, the hardly audible notes that I want to capture and explore.
• The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.
• There is a ban on Indian films in Pakistan, so that’s half of our market gone.
• 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.
• What is attempted in these films is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the film’s involvement and detachment in equal measure.
• When a new character appears in your tale, you must describe his looks and clothes in some detail. If you don’t, your reader may imagine certain things on his own, which will probably not fit whatever you say later on.
• When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t write stories about the nineteenth century.
• When I’m shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot – new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can’t do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.
• You cannot go beyond a certain limit in your expenditure if you want to bring back money from your local market, which is very small after Pakistan.

8 Satyajit Ray Quotes in Bengali

Here are some profound Satyajit Ray quotes in Bengali:

• সবচেয়ে মূল্যবান ও একমাত্র সমাধানগুলো মানুষ নিজেই খুঁজে বের করতে পারে।
• যখন আমি কোনও মৌলিক গল্প লিখি, তখন এমন ব্যক্তিদের নিয়ে লিখি যাদের আমি ব্যক্তিগতভাবে চিনি এবং এমন পরিস্থিতির কথা লিখি যার সঙ্গে আমি পরিচিত। আমি উনিশ শতকের কোনও গল্প লিখি না।
• চিত্রনাট্য লেখার অভ্যাসকে আমি শখে পরিণত করেছি। আমি খুঁজে বের করতাম কোন গল্পটি চলচ্চিত্রের জন্যই তৈরি হয়েছে এবং আমি সেই গল্পটি নিজস্ব ঢঙে লিখতাম, এরপর আসল গল্পের সঙ্গে তুলনা করতাম।
• আসলে, সবচেয়ে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হল একটা শুভ সমাপ্তির। যাইহোক, শুভ সমাপ্তির আগে যদি বিষাদময় পরিস্থিতি এবং চমক সৃষ্টি করতে পারেন তাহলে বিষয়টা আরও ভালো কাজ করে।
• আমি অনুভব করি যে, নায়কের ছাঁচে থাকা মানুষের তুলনায় রাস্তায় থাকা একটি সাধারণ মানুষকে বিষয় হিসেবে পরীক্ষা-নিরীক্ষা করা অনেক বেশি চ্যালেঞ্জিং। তাঁদের আংশিক অন্ধকার, অস্পষ্ট শব্দগুলোই আমি ধরতে চাই, আবিষ্কার করতে চাই।
• যখন আপনার গল্পে নতুন কোনও চরিত্রের আবির্ভাব ঘটবে, তখন অবশ্যই তার চেহারা ও পোশাকের বিস্তারিত বর্ণনা দেবেন। আপনি যদি সেটা না করেন তাহলে পাঠক নিজের মতো করে চিন্তা করে নেবে, যেটা পরবর্তীতে আপনার বর্ণনার সঙ্গে নাও মিলতে পারে।
• পরিচালকই একমাত্র ব্যক্তি যিনি ভালোভাবে জানেন যে চলচ্চিত্রটি কোন বিষয়কে কেন্দ্র করে তৈরি হচ্ছে।
• সিনেমায় চারিত্রিক বৈশিষ্ট্যসূচক গুণগুলোই মানুষের মনের অন্তরঙ্গ বিষয় ধরতে ও যোগাযোগ ঘটাতে সক্ষম।

8 Satyajit Ray Quotes in Hindi

Here are some famous Satyajit Ray quotes in Hindi:

• डायरेक्टर एकमात्र व्यक्ति होता है जो यह जानता है कि फिल्म कैसी है।
• जब से मेरी दो बेटियां हैं, तब से मैं स्वयं अपना संगीत बना रहा हूं।
• जिस उम्र में बंगाली युवा अनिवार्य रूप से कविता लिख रहे थे, तब मैं यूरोपीय शास्त्रीय संगीत सुन रहा था।
• सिनेमा की विशिष्ट विशेषता मानव “मन की अंतर्दृष्टि” को पकड़ने और संवाद करने की क्षमता है।
• मैं इन राष्ट्रीय पुरस्कारों को समझ नहीं पा रहा हूं क्योंकि भारतीय फिल्मों पर निर्णय लेने वाले लोगों में से आधे लोग भी ऐसे नहीं हैं जो फिल्म को सही ढंग से मूल्यांकन करने की क्षमता रखते हो।
• मैं हर समय पश्चिमी वाद्य यंत्रों के साथ भारतीय वाद्य यंत्रों का मिश्रण करता हूं।
• पाथेर पांचाली को जब कुछ सफलता मिली जब मैंने इसका दूसरा भाग करने का फैसला किया, लेकिन मैं फिर से इसी तरह की फिल्म नहीं करना चाहता था, इसलिए मैंने एक संगीत बनाया।
• फिल्मो में सुधार के लिए गुंजाईश हमेशा होती हैं।

12 Pather Panchali Satyajit Ray Quotes

Check out these memorable dialogues from Ray’s masterpiece, ‘Pather Panchali’:

• Those who came before have passed on. And I’m left behind. A penniless beggar. Not a cowrie to my name. Look, my purse is empty… Lord, the day is done and evening falls. Ferry me across to the other shore.
• Can’t an old woman have wishes too?
• – Apu: Didi, have you ever seen a train?
  – Durga: Sure.
  – Sarbojaya Ray: Don’t lie.
  – Apu: You know where the tracks are? Where?
  – Durga: Past the big meadow and beyond the rice fields.
  – Apu: Shall we go one day?
• Listen to what I’m writing now: new and original plays and poems. When word gets around, the traveling troupes will come in droves. Where else can they get new material? Original plays don’t grow on trees.
• You’ll educate the boy, give him his sacred thread, teach him to worship the gods. Durga will find a good husband. Two meals a day, new clothes twice a year – what more could we want?
• Don’t be anxious. Whatever God ordains is for the best.
• By leaf of lime and karamcha tree, rain, rain, away with thee! Rain, rain, away with thee!
• What have things come to when an old woman has to patch her own shawl?
• I had dreams, too, of all the things I would do.
• We’ll go see the train when I’m better, all right? We’ll get there early and have a good look. You want to?
• No matter what people say, Mr. Ray is a good man. Here you are. Three months’ wages – 24 rupees. Count it. I’ll quickly say my evening prayers.
• This is my home now too. But just look at it. It’s like living in the jungle. Jackals prowling around as soon as night falls. No neighbors to sit and talk to. When you’re not here, I’m terribly uneasy. But you wouldn’t understand. You eat and sleep and go about your work, unconcerned whether you’re paid or not.

5 Satyajit Ray Quotes on Filmmaking

Here are a few Satyajit Ray quotes on filmmaking:

• The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.
• 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.
• 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.
• For a filmmaker, an Oscar is like a Nobel Prize, you know. So I am very happy… delighted. There is nothing more after this. I cannot hope to get anything more prestigious.
• I would imagine that everyone who makes a film is to some extent interested in human beings… I’m slightly irritated (laughs) by this constant reference to humanism in my work – I feel that there are other elements also. It’s not just about human beings. It’s also a structure, a form, a rhythm, a face, a temple, a feeling for light and shade, composition, and a way of telling a story.

4 Satyajit Ray Quotes on Cinema

Here are some valuable quotes on the subject of cinema by Satyajit Ray:

• Bicycle Thief is a triumphant discovery of the fundamentals of cinema, and De Sica has openly acknowledged his debt to Chaplin.
• Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind.
• For the cinema, it’s much better to be more concentrated on time. It’s an instinctive feeling: I can’t put into words why I feel like that. The film’s better if the period is a day or a week or fortnight or a month so that nobody grows up: everybody’s as they were in the beginning.
• I don’t start a film with the heroine but with the cinema subject. If there is a woman in the story, she has to be of a particular type. It’s not as if I start with Madhuri Dixit and then think about what kind of film.

3 Satyajit Ray Quotes on Life

Check out these Satyajit Ray quotes on life to help you keep going:

• There’s always some room for improvisation.
• The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.
• Dominus Omnium Magister. It means God is the master of all things.

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