Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies.

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.

It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.

Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.

So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.

I just think you can't shut your life off to just, you know, one thing. You gotta be open-minded. Explore things. Feed your artist.

I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.

If I'm going to see my mom, I'm going to church!

If you see someone lying out knives and forks consistently, but then one day those knives and forks become weapons you're not sure if he does that as a warrior, that's just his thing.

We're very good friends, we have a very honest relationship. He keeps me honest, I keep him honest. He's an incredible actor and when you have an actor like Denzel action becomes drama.

I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.

A writer observes you far sharply than others and therefore you find your traits in a book.

We live in an age of instant knowledge. And there's almost a sense of entitlement to that.

We need, ultimately, to be able to view mental health with the same clear-headedness we show when talking about physical health.

Poetry, for me, is the answer to, 'How does one stay sane when private lives are being ransacked by public events?' It's something that hangs over your head all the time.

I'm back? I never went away.

All they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

Pain or pleasure? I say pleasure.

My audience are the same people who bought my albums years ago. These people are now married, with their own homes, their own families. If I'm in concert, I get people now who bring their kids.

Psychopaths know the technical difference between right and wrong - which is one of the reasons their insanity pleas in criminal cases so rarely succeed; they just fail to act on that knowledge.

Live audiences love me because I'm singing and actually am able to f**k with people live over the mic.