I'm not the go-to guy. Everybody is trying to tell their story and have different ways of telling it.

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.

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.

It's shocking when someone who is really bad thinks they're really good. It's heartbreaking, because singing is such a vulnerable thing to do.

The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.

Karma exists within causality. It is three-dimensional. Free will exists outside of causality; it is not bound by karma.

Oh no! Don't drag us away from Antartica and take us to the playground of the rich and famous! Not that briar patch! -Max

I want to be a part of something, and when we define movies now based on how they do on the weekend. We live in a society of "thumbs up, thumbs down."

[On the start of her career as a milliner:] When I was six I made my mother a little hat -- out of her new blouse.

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

I've got a mission to help people improve and massively change their lives and create breakthroughs, so I'm always looking for them and I'm the first guinea pig.

It will make you feel good, and it will make you feel whole, when the spirit moves you and it fills you through and through.