I collect names for characters. Names are valuable; they can be your first source of insight into a character.

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.

People are wonderful. Each one has a story, each something to give, each knows something interesting, something that can make your life richer.

I am everything. I am nothing. I am powerful. I am forgotten.

It is when life pushes you down that you learn to get up and go higher.

We are all ghosts of yesterday, and the phantom of tomorrow awaits us alike in sunshine or in shadow, dimly perceived at times, never entirely lost.

We are trying to do our best to bring perfection into whatever we turn our attention to.

As if being a former vampire drone in a werewolf household were not shocking enough, the maid then opened her mouth and proved that she was also, quite reprehensibly, French.

I think it's a mistake to say that to be a healthy, well-adjusted person you need a monogamous relationship.

Good servants frequently make good masters.

What love it to me...is his happiness. I'm not like you where I fall in love so I can be happy. All I need is for him to be smiling.

Karma moves in two directions. If we act virtuously, the seed we plant will result in happiness. If we act non-virtuously, suffering results.