# “Walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone.”
# “It is not special to be special, it is special to be ordinary!”
# “Home is where the heart is.”
# “Don't call him God, he's just Shah Rukh!”
# “I am the yearning that resides in a woman´s heart... that´s who I am.”
# “Whatever you feel...just dance it!”
# “Humanity is the biggest religion.”
# “I believe, being Indian is hip!”
# “We live once, die once and love only once.”
# “You never win the silver, you only lose the gold.”
# “I guess, I'm not much of a metro-sexual. I'm just sexual, that's it.”
# “I'd die if people didn't recognise me. I would not be able to walk on the road if people didn't mob me. That's what I work for.”
# “The dream I chased, took me on a journey. A journey more rewarding then the goals, the achievements. When I look back it's like facing a million mirrors. Each reflection opens a window. A window to the world I've just discovered...... The world I want to share with all of you.”
# “If I hadn't met Gauri and Kajol hadn't met Ajay, then who knows what would have happened.”
# “I want to make people intellectually aware of the eastern side of the world - I dance on top of a train.”
# “If my wife is not with me, I can't go up to a buffet table and fill my plate, I feel too shy to do that.”
# “I want to make toilets for ladies all over the place so they don't have to stand on the roadside .... It hurts me to see women on the roads searching for a place to go and clean up or wash up or whatever. And these are personal dreams.”
# “I am touched with the love and affection German fans have shown me and I promise to come back to Germany soon and you know I stand by my word.”
# “Thank you for giving me so much love, that I don´t miss my parents anymore.”
# “I thank God for happiness AND sadness... if you're never sad you'll never know how good happiness is!”
# “Yes, I do have a close circle of friends and I am very fortunate to have them as friends. I feel very close to them I think friends are everything in life after your family. You come across lots of people all the time but you only make very few friends and you have to be true to them otherwise what's the point in life?”
# “I'd rather sink trying to be different, than stay afloat like everyone else.”
# “I cannot repay my fans for what they have done for me, they have given me so much love and that love has taken me to the number 1 position where I am today, the only thing I can do for my fans is to never stop working, and to do films till the very end, it is the only way I can express my love for them.”
# “To me, Devdas is the end of love stories. I've portrayed an obsessed lover, a nice lover, an angry lover, a romantic lover. And now I've played Devdas. For someone who doesn't even like love stories, I've played an awful lot of lovers. Personally speaking, I wouldn't see any of the romantic films I've acted in.”
# “I'm the luckiest man in the world and I don't want to hide from the faces I'm acting for. So I don't surround myself with guards, I've never given an interview in which I've said I feel bad that I can't go shopping or I can't go to Chowpatty and eat bhelpuri without being mobbed. I'm not the kind of guy who goes out wearing dark glasses (I don't think I'm a big enough star to hide behind them, honest). I go to see movies in the cinema theatres, I go to restaurants with my family and friends even though I know people are going to disturb me there.”
# “God has become a generic term like `mind blowing.' It is embarrassing. I would have said that to Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar. I used to tell them I want to stand in the same space as you. I've told Kamal Haasan, I just want to touch you. They are the gods of acting. When people call me God, I say, no, I'm still an angel or saint of acting. I still have a long way to go.”
# “Awards that ignore me are losers.”
# “I'm try-sexual. I try anything that's sexual.”
# “I have no competition. Every year the names I'm pitted against keep changing. You can't cream the competition, you have to kill it. "If I talk to a girl, it's assumed that I'm having a scene with her. If I don't, then it's assumed that I'm gay.”
# “I'd like to believe there's a little of Hitler and Napoleon in me. Even if I try, I can't be as selfless as Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. I'd like to believe there's a little of Hitler and Napoleon in me. Even if I try, I can't be as selfless as Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa.”
# “Recently an actor asked me to teach him how to speak fast. Wasn't I once criticised for speaking too fast? Now they're doing it my way. Recently an actor asked me to teach him how to speak fast. Wasn't I once criticised for speaking too fast? Now they're doing it my way.”
# “Maybe the country doesn't pray for me like they do for Sachin Tendulkar, but I know I'm on a good wicket as well.”
# “I work like a retailer. I sell my services, take my money and keep it in the bank.”
# “I don't kiss on screen. Period.”
# “I'm no megalomaniac. Even I found it boring to have an entire website devoted to trivia about me. No one's interested in a one man show, unless you happen to be an Amitabh Bachchan. I'm no megalomaniac. Even I found it boring to have an entire website devoted to trivia about me. No one's interested in a one man show, unless you happen to be an Amitabh Bachchan.”
# “Cinema in India is like brushing your teeth in the morning. You can't escape it.”
# “Whenever I fail as a father or husband... a toy and a diamond always works.”
# “Home is where Gauri and the children are...”
# “I thank God for happiness AND sadness... if you're never sad you'll never know how good happiness is.”
# “I am a very big star. I don’t deserve to be such a big star or to be in this position. It’s all because of my parents are taking care of me. Dad wasn’t so pushy, so it must be mom. On every happy occasion I feel sad because I wish mom was still present. How I wish she was here today.”
# “My sister Shehnaz is very naïve and sweet. She is also very spoilt and pampered. I love her a lot. I've grown in her shadow, as she was the older child in the house. I'd look up to her. She is very quite now, after my parents demise. She stays with me. She is an educated girl. She has done a management course; she used to work as an officer for the Indira Gandhi memorial. She has also done her MBA in psychology .”
# “On 2nd November 1965 a normal occurrence happened at the Talwar Nursing Home in New Delhi. Just like many newborns, I was born with the umbilical cord entangled around my neck. A nurse said that it was by the blessings of Hanuman and that I would be a very lucky child. I don’t know if I believe in it but it is the one thing I was told by my parents about my birth that I remember.”
# “We were given black and golden stars for our behaviour and test results. Five black stars meant lying across Mrs. Bala’s lap and getting spanked three times, I think. Being quite naughty I was spanked a lot. I wish the same treatment was meted out to me even now. Looking back one realizes that what one thought punishment was actually quite pleasurable. “
# “On proposing to his wife, Gauri: ( Thinks ) I don't really quite remember actually. We had known each other for like eight years. So it was sort of understood that we'd marry. Umm... I just remember telling her I love you. I didn't even date her like you normally do -- she's the only girl I've ever really known. To be quite honest. I remember I just dropped her to her house and just told her ( that he wanted to marry her ). ( Laughs ) Didn't wait for her response -- just drove off. “
# “I told the rickshaw driver to take me to this beach. So we went and there she was. Standing in the water, wearing a T-shirt. By then it didn't matter even if she wasn't wearing anything. She came over and we hugged, and cried. It was then that I realised I was being unreasonably possessive. I also realised that no one could ever love Gauri the way I loved her and that gave me tremendous confidence.”
# “Our relationshipis not based on how much we have done for each other. If Gauri has made sacrifices or adjustments, she has not told me. Had she told me, you cannot call it a sacrifice but an obligation. I could keep harping about how much I love Gauri but we’re beyond all this.”
# “He doesn't bring his work and work problems home. He tries to spend a lot of time with his family. For him, I always come first. I've never been sad or unhappy or suspicious that Shahrukh is upto something behind my back. How often do you pick up a magazine and read about Shahrukh having an affair with somebody? I've never read anything of that sort.”
# “A wife can help balance the scales of emotion but she cannot fill the void of a mother: fortunatly for Shahrukh, Gauri has been a part of his life for the last 15 to 16 years. “She is a part of me. Or rather; I’m like her appendage. I don’t want to demean or raise her by status by calling her my mother or comparing her. Gauri is a completely different person. At times, mcuh more than what my mother would have been. Gauri is much beyond. Like there’s a little world around me and there’s a galaxy. All that is encompassed by Gauri, including my mom and her star. Everything.”
# “At times when she is out somewhere, I feel there’s nothing without Gauri. No life, no house, no stardom, no child, no happiness, no company without Gauri. I cannot say she’s my support of pillar or strenght either. Aryan wouldn’t be around without Gauri. I can’t explain the happiness I feel when they’re around. It’s wonderful and it’s all because of Gauri.”
# “Gauri teaches me how to be diplomatic. She had taught me to switch the lights off before going to bed, To have dinner at the proper place, to put my clothes in the proper place, she has taught me how to dress up well too. She has turned me from an animal to a man. She spoils me a lot. She is the stabilizing factor in my life. She likes me because I make her laugh. And boy, do I make her laugh...”
# “The birth of his son, Aryan: I've lost my parents in hospitals -- so I don't like being in hospitals. And Gauri is quite fragile -- and I've never seen her fall really sick, or seen her unwell. When I saw her in the hospital, they had put in tubes and stuff. And she was becoming delirious and she was really cold. I went with her to the operation theatre for her Caesarean... And I thought she'd die. Didn't even think about the kid at that point in time. It wasn't important to me. She was shivering so much and I know logically that you don't die while giving birth to babies... But still...I just got a little scared.
# “About son Aryan: We just named him Aryan. I don't know. I just liked the sound of the name. I thought when he tells a girl ki my name is Aryan. Aryan Khan, she'll be really impressed. His looks have come from both of us. Actually Gauri and I have similar features -- both of us have big eyes and thick lips. I don't know... He's got expressions like mine, I think... But he's a mixture. And no, I haven't changed any diapers!”
# “I’ve collected a lot of balls for him and he loves playing with them. Aryan also loves dancing to my songs. We have pillow fights and love jumping on the bed. We quite demented when we are together.”
# “When you see father and son together, you can’t tell who’s younger. We play a lot together. We share Grasshopper together. We even share his little car. He rides it and so do i. Sometimes I push it, and at others he pushes it. Sometimes we play ‘fighting-fighting’ and we play with my Superman. He plays with it as much as I do.”
# “Aryan wakes up by 7.30 or 8 in the morning. I spend a couple of hours with him and then rush to my shooting. If I’m at Mehboob Studio, close to home, I drive back for lunch. At night I get back by 9.30 or 10.00 and we play till 11.30. I play with him till he falls asleep and try to sleep with him.”
# “I hope Aryaan will grow up to look like my father. He was such a handsome man." And will he be as good a parent to his son? "I'll be a better parent to my son than my parents were to me. They died too soon, they left me alone. But I'll always be there for my son.”
# “With a heap of ha-ha humour, he adds, "My baby will be a pucca flirt. I think he even winked at the nurses at the Breach Candy hospital where he was born. I hope my child turns out to be a pucca badmaash. Just like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. But even if he turns out to be well-behaved, that's okay by me.”
# “My son must be honest and respect elders. That's all that I expect of him. Frankly, I really hated myself when I saw Gauri going through all that labour pain. In the past 13 years that I've known her, she's never fallen ill on me even once. And now because of me she had to go through labour pain.”
# “Though everyone says my son looks like me, I think he's an exact replica of Gauri. He took to me instantly, he even talks to me. I'll tell my son to grab all the opportunities he can, he shouldn't wait for them to come knocking. And when he grows up, I'll flirt with all his girlfriends. That's for sure."
# “In her own quiet way, Suhana brought smiles and joy into our house even before she was born.”
# “I stayed in my van for two days outside Breach Candy hospital to be near Gauri when she delivered our second child. I left Aryan at Juhi's house. In between I would get frantic telephone calls on my cell phone about how Aryan was scandalizing the servants and members of Juhi's family by stripping and running buck naked through the house shouting "Look at me! I'm Tarzan!" It's his favourite ploy to get attention, which he needs in a constant and undivided manner. I think he's going to grow up to be an actor.”
# “Suhana, unlike Aryan, was quiet from the time she was born. Like all children, Aryan was a little concerned about the new entrant into his family so we tried to avert the sibling rivalry by giving him chocolates and saying they were from Suhana.”
# “Amongst the hundreds of telephone calls I received to congratulate Gauri and myself (and to give us advice on raising children!), I particularly remember one from Anil . He said, "Are you sitting on the side of God and whispering into His ears what you want? First you get success, and fame and then you get a perfect family too - a boy and a girl." I thought it was very sweet.”
# “Initially, I was scared to pick Suhana in my arms. She was so fragile, unlike Aryan. I could toss up Aryan and play rough with him but Suhana was different, she's a lady. Very quiet and loving, but I have a feeling she'll grow up to be very naughty.”
# “One year has passed since she was born. She can barely stand now. And Aryan is learning how to get along with his little sister. We decided to have them share the same room so that they could bond. Gauri makes them eat together too. Of course it's very difficult to get Aryan/ Superman/ Batman/ Spiderman to sit in one place long enough to eat a meal but Suhana is so well behaved. She just smiles quietly at the world. She's very loving, even towards complete strangers.”
# “I am a total family man. I drop my kids to school every day and if I knew how to cook I would even cook for them. According to me, doing things for my kids is very macho.”
# “My part in bringing up Aryan, is similar. Gauri is very proud of me. I don’t think she will mind if Aryan learns some of my values. She knows that I’m a little strange but there’s also something which is right about me. That’s why she married me. Of course, Gauri wouldn’t want Aryan to be as mad as I am! From my side, he’s okay!”
# “Though my wife thinks I'm mad, I know I'll drop my daughter to the parties she's invited to. I'll want her friends to say, "Wow what a handsome father you have!" When she's with her boyfriend in the backseat of our car, I'll be at the wheel, driving her around.”
# “My health is priority —because of my children. So the priority actually would be the kids. I need to make sure that in the next one year I get back to a healthy state of affairs so that I can last with them a little longer.Everything else comes second.”
# “When I set up Dreamz Unlimited the logic was to start a company where everybody was well fed, got their money and were self-reliant. The idea behind Arclightz was to have an equipment unit, which would back up Dreamz Unlimited. The logic of Dreamz Unlimited is not to make money but to make different films and to make sure not to lose money. We should not have to sell our houses to run the company. So when I decided to join hands with Aziz and Juhi for Dreamz Unlimited I was very clear that the company should be self-reliant. I was not aiming to be the biggest film producer in the world but I wanted that we should be able to make our kind of films without being dependant on producers who were not like-minded.”
# We saw things in perspective. The only way you can make a film without compromising is to make a film cheap. The simplest way to make a cheap film is to have a backend equipment company. So that’s Arclightz. And how will Arclightz run? We will earn our equipment cost within three or four hiring and by the third film we will have no equipment costs. So that film will be cheaper. It will not be much cheaper but will at least save a crore of rupees on a seven crore budget.”
# “And then some of the set props we make can be used again. And everything is backend. We don’t spend 35 lakhs on the publicity; we spend 25 lakhs and own the unit. Today if I buy publicity equipment, it will cost me 25 lakhs. But now that I have made the investment, I will have that equipment free to make the next film. So slowly, slowly there will come a time when I won’t have to spend any money on too many things.”
# “Since I entered films through television, I do have a soft corner for the medium. A few years ago, I was trying so hard to convince all my friends to get a head start in television but no one thought it was good idea. In fact, I had spoken of doing a game show, but everyone around told me that people won’t accept a big screen star who appears on the small screen. So now, a little late perhaps, we are starting to provide software for television, though not necessarily featuring me. Once again, the idea is to make the kind of programmes that we would like to watch, programmes, which don’t insult your intelligence. We know we can provide content which is at least a little above the average.”
# “My childhood was not a wealthy one, but a contented one. My family was not rich but then we never saw poverty either. Since my father had been a freedom fighter he had a lot of connections and he could have gone on to become a lawyer or a politician, but he tried to set up his own business. He tried his hand at many businesses but he was too nice to make money at someone else’s expense, so he was never very successful. He was never depressed or unhappy though. I call him the most successful failure.”
# “That’s the way he lived and that’s the nature I have too. But I also saw my mother suffer because of his niceness. I realized when my mother died that there is a reasonable essential quality about money. Since then I have always remembered one thing: you should do business to the extent that you have a position of choice. You get that position of choice when you fulfill your basic needs. It should not be that you don’t marry because you don’t have enough money. That is my basic line of thought when it comes to business. Even when I price myself, I don’t go according to my stardom or the market rate. My price is based on how much I require. There are a lot of times when I have been underpaid because of this attitude and there are a lot of times when I have been overpaid too”.
# “At heart I’m a retailer. It should never be that you have to sell your personal belongings to make the business run. It should pay for itself. This is the basic premise of a retailer. If you open a shop it should pay for the electricity bill, the water tax and the staff salary at least. It may not make crores, but it should be self-sufficient.”
# “I believe that you should not take interest money. I believe in the Islamic principle that you should not take money if you don’t deserve it. You should work for it. I don’t dabble in shares. Nor do I dabble in speculation, lottery, gambling. I know it’s an old-fashioned thought but I believe that money is no good money. I don’t think I deserve it unless I have wrestled for it, boxed for it, run for it, made a painting for it…I like that money.”
# “These four principles cover my business philosophy: You should work for it, you should not lose money in any business, you should make enough money so that you are in a position of choice. And finally, if you start a business employing a lot of people, the end result, regardless of whether it made money or not, should be that all those people involved should be happy that they gave it a shot.”
# “Many people say creative artists should not do business. But I don’t do business at that level. Then again, a lot of people tell me I’m a very good businessman, but that’s not true either. I believe in simplicity and clarity in business. I believe in honesty and quick decision. And I am ready to give more than what you expect from me. But what you promise should be delivered otherwise I feel cheated because I invariably give in more than what was negotiated for, whether it’s a film, an ad, a TV serial or the production of a film.”
# “One of the greatest gifts of God to me is that I have never felt a lack of money. God has given me a lot of things - name, talent, fame, looks, success - but the one aspect he has given me for which I am most grateful is that I have never had to ask for money. Even in my growing years, I remember I once told my mother, ‘Mom, can I have a car?’ not knowing whether she could afford one, but the next day she would tell me, ‘You know, Shah Rukh, while going through the accounts I realized that an FD is lying with me.’ And from that money I would find a car standing outside the door.”
# “When I wanted to buy a flat, Ratan Jain gave me cheque of seven lakh rupees. When I wanted to buy a bungalow, star prices suddenly shot up so much that I had the money to buy the bungalow. When I couldn’t afford a Pajero, the dealer gave it to me at half the cost. It has always been like that. If I have wanted something it has always come to me. That’s why I never wish for material things. Maybe God has said that He will grant my wish only 48 times in this lifetime so I don’t want it to run out.”
# “I have not been greedy for wrong things. But in a different context, I think greed is the mainstay of life. I believe that you should have a greed for knowledge, for money so that you can have choice, greed for love. Greed is the core of mankind’s existence. Greed is what makes me what I am. I am greedy for doing more than what I am doing. I am geedy for more money too. I have enough money right now, but I will never let go of a chance to make money. Opportunity knocks only once. And if you don’t let her in she walks past and knocks on the other door. Opportunity is like a lady. Dad used to say ‘waqt ki choti aage hoti’. Opportunity is like a woman and her braid is in the front, so if you let her pass you can’t catch hold of her. You have to hold her when she is facing you. So I believe in initiative and in striking when the iron is hot.”
# “Somewhere down the line, we are creating situations in our country which are making us feel that we may need to hold back our own way of welcoming people. I think this is wrong.”
# “I don’t sit around complaining about the lack of good roles. I will play Raj 85 times and still make him different.”
# “There are only two Khans. Ghenghis Khan and Shahrukh Khan”
# “Maybe the country doesn’t pray for me like they do for Sachin Tendulkar, but I know I’m on a good wicket as well. ”
# “I’d die if people didnt recognise me. I would not be able to walk on the road if people didnt mob me. That’s what I work for.”
# “When I have the right to make you cry in a dark room for three hours, you have the right to ask me any question you want.”
# “Sex is not required to sell my film. My name is enough.”
# “The collar-bone is my favourite part of the human body.”
# “The dream I chased, took me on a journey. A journey more rewarding then the goals, the achievements. When I look back it’s like facing a million mirrors. Each reflection opens a window. A window to the world I’ve just discovered. The world I want to share with all of you ”
# “You can love me or hate me but.. you can’t ignore me”
# “I am very shy. If I am flying British Airways and the airhostess asks me two questions, and I don’t understand her accent – I will go hungry for the entire flight.”
# “As a star I believe I opened the gates for other actors to do ads. I brought respectability to stars doing ads by endorsing so many products: Pepsi, Mayur Suitings, Hyundai Santro, Snoodles, Cinthol soap, Bagpiper club soda, Clinic All Clear. And then of course I’m an Omega brand ambassador. I think I can be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hero who has sold the maximum number of products: cars, soap, shampoo, noodles, watches, clothes - I have done it all.”
# “People talk to me about overexposure but I don’t agree. Many of the products I did were just being launched, so the ads would be taken off after a while. And more importantly, according to me, overexposure is not a dirty way to die. In the world of entertainment, not getting the recognition you deserve is worse than dying of overexposure. It is better to burn out than to rust out. It is better to be overexposed than be under-recognised. They say a star is someone who spends half his life struggling for recognition and the other half wearing dark glasses to avoid being recognized. I think that’s highly stupid. I think there is nothing like overexposure, just as I think there’s nothing like overacting.”
# “I’m not at all ashamed of doing so many ads. The money I made from advertising gave me the scope to do the kind of cinema I wanted to. Though I have never done an ad only for money. For products like Pepsi or Omega, I just tell them to pay me as much as they can afford. Maybe they pay me less than the other film star models. I don’t want to know what x, y, z is getting paid. I enjoy the product because my name is attached to it. I take great pride in the fact that I have done the maximum number of Pepsi films perhaps in the world. One model doing four different series of Pepsi commercials is quite a big achievement. And India is the country where Pepsi sells the most. I am very proud of the fact that I am attached to this product. It is my product.”
# “Some felt my looks were not adequate to make it as a romantic hero. One producer of mine still insists that my “hair is like a bear’s”. I never felt bad about what they said. Because I believed. I believed that I would finally look my part in my films. I knew that I am no Greek God in the looks department, but I thought I would project an inner beauty on the screen which people would be able to see and understand. Even now I am not a vain person, because I firmly believe that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. My mother thought I was very good looking. I wish that producer could meet up with her and she’d show him who looked like a bear just before she hung him on the clothes line to dry.
# “I believe that when you are in love, your partner is the most beautiful person in the world. I believe I can have a love story with my audience. I can love them and love them a lot. Even then, I was sure that they would realize this love and love me back. And once they were in love they would find me nice, whether I was Adonis or not.”
# “I believed that when my audience would come to see me I was not going to present to them a well-sculpted, well-groomed piece of wax. I would not and I could not. Instead I would hold up a mirror to them and show them how they would look doing what I was doing. I wasn't here to show off my talents and whatever I had in the looks department and ask for admiration and appreciation. I was here to ask for love. I was here to woo them not impress them. I was here to make them realize that I am just one of them, like them, except that my job puts me in different situations and stories. And if I was able to hold up this mirror to everyone I was sure my audience would appreciate me because they would reciprocate their love to one of their own, hair not withstanding.”
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