Just try to be yourself and resist complacency and ignorance. All you can do is work, work; work and be disciplined.

Face your reality. You, black or white, are not innocent anymore. Either you have the courage to face it or you will go down together with the whole idea of the American Dream.

The system gives you two minutes to phrase a whole history.

There are only one or two geniuses every century.

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

I just hope that my films will survive me.

[James] Baldwin is needed even more today because he helps you focus to the essential, to what is important.

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

Today, I don't even think that people like [James Baldwin] are possible. He would not have that much room.

Your tweet is as important as if you would have written a Ph.D. [dissertation] on the subject.

Why would anything change that has not been changed since the existence of cinema? [James] Baldwin somehow wakes you up to reality. It takes you out of the dream - or out of the nightmare.

We must be careful what we imagine, fear, or hope for. The echoes of our thought live on in eternity.

I think that's one of the reasons it's nice to leave out a lot; it can become a lot more personal to people if there is room for them to put their own experiential time track on it.

Throughout history, females have picked providers for males. Males pick anything.

Praise is essential in developing the right attitude toward learning and toward school.

I'm much pickier about what I put in my body. I always read labels now, whereas before I didn't even think to.

You know the black bits in bananas? Are they tarantulas' eggs?

Only from God does true revolution come... the definitive way to change the world.

Just when exactly does the Millennium begin? Some say 1999, some say 2000, and some say 2001. You wait a thousand years for one, and three turn up at once.

I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar

The majority of my training was as a drummer, and drummers are basically accompanists.