A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there.

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.

The truth is that there is opportunity right now in your present day. Every day offers its own set of golden opportunities.

The first time you meet Winston [Churchill] you see all his faults and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.

Jeet Kune Do: it's just a name; don't fuss over it. There's no such thing as a style if you understand the roots of combat.

Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.

As time goes on you are given responsibility and other things to deal with. You become a husband and a father and there's another shirt of stuff.

Iniesta doesn't dye his hair, he doesn't wear earrings and he hasn't got any tattoos. Maybe that makes him unattractive to the media but he is the best.

We should tax things we don't like. We should tax pollution ... And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food.

I became a writer in spite of my environments.

It is not the critic who counts

I've been happily dedicated to the same woman for a number of years. I never even look at other women.