A mismatched outfit, a slightly defective denture, an exquisite mediocrity of the soul-those are the details that make a woman real, alive. The women you see on posters or in fashion magazines-the ones all the women try to imitate nowadays-how can they be attractive? They have no reality of their own; they're just the sum of a set of abstract rules. They aren't born of human bodies; they hatch ready-made from the computers

It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers —

I couldn't portray a women in all her natural loveliness.. ..I haven't the skill. No one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression. Nature is mere a pretext for decorative composition, plus sentiment. It suggests emotion, and I translate that emotion into art. I want to express the absolute, not merely the factitious woman.

I told them that I wanted to be able to show the stronger side of women. I didn’t want to do the obvious role that you see in Hollywood most of the time, which is the heartbroken girl who’s waiting to be rescued by the guy, blah, blah, blah.

I think a picture is more like the real world when it is made out of the real world.

In most pictures today, the 'sex appeal' is primarily manifested through the feminine characters. But women, as I said before, constitute by far the greatest portion of all audiences. It should be aimed at them. It is an almost indefinable thing. I should call it a hint of great capacity for emotion, a capacity which can only be tapped by a touch on a hidden spring, seldom found. Take, for instance, and William Boyd, who played what might almost be called a double lead in the last picture I did for Cecil DeMille. In both of them 'sex appeal' will be strikingly manifested. Between these two men I have appealed to every potential feminine spectator of the picture. And that is the way 'sex appeal' should be directed, not to the men, but to the women, I believe.

In the past, women were removed from society and they wanted women to stay only at home and wanted to forget about women. Now, I want to use my paintings to remind people about women.“I have changed my images to show the strength of women, the joy of women. In my artwork, there is lots of movement. I want to show that women have returned to Afghan society with a new, stronger shape. It’s not the woman who stays at home. It’s a new woman. A woman who is full of energy, who wants to start again. You can see that in my artwork, I want to change the shape of women. I am painting them larger than life. I want to say that people look at them differently now.

I'm a real woman with a real heart and I have to live with a beautiful body and a pretty face which is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

"A mismatched outfit, a slightly defective denture, an exquisite mediocrity of the soul-those are the details that make a woman real, alive. The women you see on posters or in fashion magazines-the ones all the women try to imitate nowadays-how can they be attractive? They have no reality of their own; they're just the sum of a set of abstract rules. They aren't born of human bodies; they hatch ready-made from the computers." ~The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

I feel very complete about her. I think she`s more vulnerable. I think she is truly alone. It`s very interesting to play a character who is truly alone, especially a woman, because women are always seen in relation to men or to other woman. It was a very-not to put our audience off-but it was a very existential situation in many ways.

A woman asks little of love: only that she be able to feel like a heroine.

As an actress, it’s a dream come true role. You run the gamut of human emotions with each incarnation of the story. She’s an authentic character and I have so much fun playing her.

For a while, I was nervous about portraying women because of the objectification that automatically comes with it, whether the artist intends or not.

She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.