Mahira Khan Quotes

My faith has cost me a lot of money. Because I do creative roles, and I guess someone could think of me as, I could play bawdy, I could play rough around the edges. And so they think, 'Oh, she'll do this. It'll be so funny.' And I'm like, 'I'm not doing that.'

I've never chosen or rejected a role because of money.

I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.

A lot of times, people believe that until you're a certain-list actor, you say yes to everything; you're not allowed to say no. But early on, something went off in me, and if something didn't ring true for a myriad of reasons, I would say no and was fortunate enough to have people around me that were OK with that.

I don't have the psychological stamina to last under artistic compromises over a prolonged period of time. I get hostile and vindictive. It wears me down.

Money is very important to me, but its source is important too. As of now, I can say that I will never ever do films that demands me to sell my craft.

My responsibility is to truth and beauty.

When I was on the big labels, I never calculated what would make me sell more records. I just did what I did -no different than when I wrote songs for myself in high-school.

I'm selfish, I think. I think an artist has to be. I'm not worried about what people think. I play the parts that I find interesting. It'd bother me more to be just pigeonholed into doing what people think is ethical or that's boring to me. I don't pick parts with that in mind, I just find interesting stories. If it's interesting to me, then I do it.

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

I don't read reviews, and I don't include the press as part of my priorities or as part of the world that has any validity to what's really important to me.

What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is?

It may or may not sound pretentious. But I've turned down, consciously and specifically, many jobs I knew would have been a pretty surefire way to go about making a lot of money, being recognized and gaining power in the industry.

I would never write in response to what I believe the public wanted or needed.

What other people think of me is not really my major concern in life. What other people think of what I write is another matter.

Starting off in music, the purpose of it was not to become like well known on the street and be famous. You know, I didn't even think about that part of being famous. Famous for making records, yes, but famous face in a woman's magazine, I never thought of that. I didn't want that.

I can only display what I've been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn't deserve this heritage.

I think everyone is always asking themselves, How is my work meaningful, how is my life meaningful? As I get older, I feel like who I am as a person and a citizen is more important than who I am in my work. But I do think it reframed slightly for me, how much I have to care about a project in order to want to do it. Sometimes, obviously, you have a take a job for money. But I think I'm quicker now when I get a script that's, say, borderline misogynist, I'm not going to go in for it. I'm thinking more about what I'm putting into the world.

The music is all we care about -- so if that's bad, then we're bad.

A lot of reasons I didn't do records with people is because I never wanted their light to reflect on me.

I sometimes can't do movies just for the money. I really can't. I mean, I've tried. Believe me, I'd love to just take the money and run.

I'm kind of whatever about nudity. Hopefully I wouldn't be a part of anything, whether I'm naked or not, that I didn't believe in. But I'm pretty comfortable being naked.

Unless a woman asks men out (the first time) as often as men ask her out, then the assertion 'He asked me out, therefore he pays' is just a double jeopardy of the male role: he must not only do the asking, he must pay extra for risking extra rejection.

Actors, producers and directors have a responsibility. My personal pledge, since I became a mother 12 years ago, is that I won't be in any project my daughter can't watch. I'm trying to prepare her for the world.

I trust people. So I make my music for people not for candidates.