It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.

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.

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.

Power is knowing your past.

So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

murder your darlings

An enemy of today is a friend of tomorrow

Today is a gift from God - that is why it is called the present.

We can never prove that we are free or integrate our freedom in any way into our objective conception of the causal order of nature.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can't run a state.

Everything stems from real experiences but I do also have a very vivid imagination. A song lyric gets easily carried away with itself and can end up somewhere I'd never have predicted.

I can't say what most people are doing. I can only say what I am doing.

Without a tighter union, Europe will disintegrate

Most of my albums have a concept. They all have some kind of theme, some kind of feeling. I really take pride in that.