'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.

I think black people have to be in control of their own image because film is a powerful medium. We can't just sit back and let other people define our existence.

There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.

It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.

Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest.

When you love something it's not a job anymore.

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.

American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.

I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.

Do not let difficulties overcome your true purpose

Once you take sword in your hand, you will lose your right to talk about the peace! Man of peace and love never takes the sword in his hand!

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

I am a Cartesian clear and distinct object on this pyramidal peak of the mountain, where the echoes trail off almost forever the horizon.

She who means no mischief does it all.

There needs to be a shift in consciousness; there needs to be an absolute wake-up call before society can actually make the kind of incredibly significant changes that need to happen.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!

I wasnt using college as a stepping stone to law school or some other career. I just wanted a liberal-arts education.

If you have an enemy, you first have to listen - whether he really is an enemy or just speaks in a different language

Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I ha' lost my reputation, I ha' lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial!