"It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity"

“While I was studying film at the Academy, the problems started. I wasn't a political activist directly in the time of Saddam [Hussein], because the dictator was so cruel and brutal that no one could criticize or complain. I felt futile and empty. The only solution in Iraq was to run away.”

Source : Source: www.guernicamag.com

“It might sound crazy, but filming in a conflict zone, in Afghanistan, and being a female filmmaker was the easy part. I found people open and understanding of the importance and beauty of filmic storytelling. I never had to explain why Jake Bryant, my Director of Photography, and I were climbing up a ladder to get a high shot, or running ahead to get an arrival shot, or filming weeks after weeks, months after months, collecting so much material. The process was respected and honored.”

“90% of people are in jobs they hate and are bitter about their lives and scratching about for money. That's my worst nightmare.”

Source : Source: www.mirror.co.uk

“If you had come to me a hundred years ago, do you think I should have dreamed of the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it! I use it every day, I transact half my correspondence by means of it, but I don’t understand it. Thnk of that little stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating in your ear not only sounds, but words-not only words, but all the most delicate and elusive inflections and nuances of tone which separate one human voice from another! Is not that something of a miracle?”

“She felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. Afterward she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it. Now, however, she knows she wasn't being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It's a rare gift to under stand that you life is wondrous, and that it won't last forever.”

“When I was small, I didn't even know that I was a kid with special needs.  How did I find out? By other people telling me that I was different from everyone else, and that this was a problem.”

Source : Naoki Higashida (2013). “The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism: one boy's voice from the silence of autism”, p.2, Hachette UK

“They've been screaming about the death of literacy for years, but I think TV is the Gutenberg [printing] press. I think TV is the only thing that keeps us vaguely in democracy even if it's in the hands of the corporate culture. If you're an artist you write in your time. Moaning about the fact that maybe people read more books a hundred years ago - that's not true. I think the same percentage has always read.”

“Is this level of athletic competition the ultimate distraction from real life? Or is it a form of prayer?”