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.

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.

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.

Power is knowing your past.

Fat gives things flavor.

I guess one of the ways that karma works is that it finds out what you are most afraid of and then makes that happen eventually.

Wilderness. The word itself is music.

Everyone on the Internet is sad. Why else would they be on the Internet?

We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.

So every year when Christmas comes, I realize a new, the best gift life can offer is having friends like you.

A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.

Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world.

Coffee on an airplane always smells bad. Whenever it is served, suddenly the whole cabin stinks of it.

The earliest desire of succeeding is almost always a prognostic of success.