I've been blessed with the opportunity to express the views of black people who otherwise don't have access to power and the media. I have to take advantage of that while I'm still bankable.

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.

No human should mislead another by promising them something they know to be untrue.

The average PhD thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another.

If you would be a writer, first be a reader

I had a laptop when they weighed 10 pounds.

Rose of the desert! thou art to me An emblem of stainless purity,-- Of those who, keeping their garments white, Walk on through life with steps aright.

Several sorts of memory exist in us; body and mind each possesses one peculiar to itself. Nostalgia, for instance, is a malady of the physical memory.

Winning the Royal Rumble is as big an accomplishment as anything.

I'm buying things for people I don't even know. I'm like Willy Wonka, but more manipulative. Imagine if Willy Wonka had a devious goal.

The only thing worse than Radiohead fans is everything else except me

They say pu$$y and paper is poetry power and pistols.