I want to tell stories, I don't really try to get boxed in by a specific genre.

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.

Future has a scheming, naughty and intelligent mind. It is never fully predictable!

You have thousands of friends and all of them will be part of your history but not with your destiny.

If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?

Caught red-handed for exclamation abuse.

To the world, you are America.

Gas prices - it is $6 a gallon here. People in L.A. are furious. You can't tell, of course, because of the Botox.

For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it's like being a mirror; if they didn't have me to look at, they wouldn't be able to put the make-up on.

Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

By the time a writer comes onto a project (if they're being hired as a contractor) the main character has usually been designed, as that's always done during a project's pitching stage.

Real love still happens sometimes. It's not just something we make up when you're nine. I have to believe that. You do too.