Stick around long enough, you'll get some grace.

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.

Humanity? Don't be silly. I know. It is knocking down your fellow-men for the sake of your own happiness.

I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.

When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

Cults make people sing so hard for so long - because it over-oxygenates the blood and sets them up to faint.

Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.

All the world's a stage we're going through.

One does not have to be a Marxist to know there is something very wrong in this society.

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.

so people really do tear out their hair and beat the ground with their fists

The highest level of sexual excitement is in a monogamous relationship.