I like people to look like they're floating.

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.

It is not my words that I polish, but my ideas. 102

There are times where you need to step it up even higher

What if God doesn’t keep his promises?

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

...You say you don't mistrust me, yet you quote Chrysostom - Hell is paved with priests' skulls....

Hard work pays off in the future but requires discomfort now. Laziness pays off now but guarantees discomfort in the future.

hardly anything in L.A. was close to anywhere else you wanted to go.

Life is just a dirty four-letter word: W-O-R-K.

I'm not fancy. I'm what I appear to be.

Canada thinks we're married; we don't know it exists. Every time we tell Canada to knock it off, it just feeds the fire.