The first thing that goes into shooting a scene is understanding whats on the page.

Failure: Is it a limitation? Bad timing? It's a lot of things. It's something you can't be afraid of, because you'll stop growing. The next step beyond failure could be your biggest success in life.

In places in the world where we don't speak the same language, or even understand that we pray to the same God, we dance to the same beat, that is the ONE.

But out of limitations comes creativity.

Be true. Be beautiful. Be free. In the midst of segregation and racism Mamma raised us to be independent and free. We saw ourselves as citizens of the world, not of a block.

I'm driven by passion. I mean, I am tired right now. I work to a point of abandon. I am fueled by my understanding of the need for self-expression that exists for young people.

Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

If you just change one person's life, you feel like you've done something. But if you can change a whole lot of them and get them looking at themselves differently, it's amazing.

I'm always moving forward.

I design my shots. I walk the rehearsal as the camera and say 'this is where I want to be... I want this look.

We must not build up ourselves at the expense of others.

Narcissists only play for their own business, whereas Distortionists play with other’s business only to gain personal advantage. If you are both, then you aren’t an entrepreneur.

Confidence has brought them out into the light, but they seem to have forgotten - light's no good for creatures of the night.

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.

It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.

Within the gendered institution of prostitution, race and class create a hierarchy with indigenous women at its lowest point.

In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces.

You see, my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14, and we used to move from time to time because of her work.

Oh, high is the price of parenthood, and daughters may cost you double. You dare not forget, as you thought you could, that youth is a plague and a trouble.

You can do anything for 30 seconds