I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.

I've dodged all sorts of bullets in Hollywood to get my movies made. I'm tough.

I can't do movies where you start thinking "Where's the commercial appeal? How are we going to market this?" It's not that kind of party.

I was always intrigued with European cinema, and hated most American cinema. I didn't like the one, two, three - boom! style, with a neat and tidy ending. That was never my scene.

I want to go to places that are unexpected of me, because people really think they have me pegged. I want to do something different, like maybe do a space movie or a musical.

Trust is hard to get from actors, and for me to give to actors.

I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.

I'm not tough when it comes to people criticizing the people that I protect, and those are the actors. It makes them scared to do it again for another director.

My philosophy has always been, you don't put your name in front of a movie.

I think that when you have audacity, you will get polarization.

Do what you love or die a slow death doing what you hate

Honesty has become the second best policy with your spouse…discretions apply elsewhere

Tragedy is when someone ends up dead.Everything else is just a bump in the road.

It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools.

I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, "An open door".

It has become evident that the primary lesson of the study of evolution is that all evolution is coevolution: every organism is evolving in tandem with the organisms around it.

I'm not an activist at all. I'm a filmmaker, and I wanted the people involved to tell their own story.

In the industry, I got a lot of attention for Mad Men, because everyone in the industry watches it.

Jesus may ask of you far more than you planned to give, but He can give to you infinitely more than you dared ask or think.

If you destroy a free market you create a black market.