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" Before me, music soundtracks were sort of afterthoughts. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Music
Sort
Me
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" The studios didn't really take independent films seriously, till 'Sweetback' was such a financial success. "
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" Big publishers want you to change this and change that. I'd rather go to a little publisher - who needs the tsuris. "
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" I've never been to film school. I had to leave this country to make a film. All they would let me do in Hollywood was be a messenger. "
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" Personally, I do movies the way I cook: I put in what I like in case nobody else likes it and I have to eat it for the rest of the week. "
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" It must be horrible to do things that you don't like hoping to please other people, and they don't like it either, and you've got to eat it. "
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" If I was just a creator, I would still be back in the Lincoln annex in the Post Office. "
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Back
Creator
" Music - some people just don't know that part of me. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Some People
Me
Music
" Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Blacks
Without
Knowing
" Blacks had a huge role in settling the West, but you'd never know it from Western movies. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Never
Know
Movies
" One day, I was sitting in a movie theater, and I said, 'What the hell? I can do better than that.' "
Melvin Van Peebles
Better
Sitting
Hell
" Over time, you accumulate a lot of life material. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Lot
Material
Time
" As a navigator, I started studying astronomy because sometimes you're not able to use the equipment, so you'd have to do it the old-fashioned way, figuring out what you were seeing in the sky. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Seeing
Sky
Sometimes
" No one - black, white, or any different - walks away from a three-picture deal with a studio. That's every filmmaker's dream. But it wasn't mine. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Black
Different
Dream
" In trying to cross over to the mainstream, some people stopped writing what they witnessed. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Some People
Writing
People
" What some folks find funny, other folks find tragic. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Find
Tragic
Some
" I walk down the street; the garbagemen will shout at me, and we'll talk. That's a pleasure when people feel, 'If he can do it, I can, too.' "
Melvin Van Peebles
Me
Down
Walk
" When I was in the Air Force, if I walked into a restaurant, in about eight or nine minutes the M.P.'s would show up and drag me out because someone had called saying that someone was impersonating an officer. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Air Force
Me
Restaurant
" Scars are the price you pay for success. "
Melvin Van Peebles
You
Price
Scars
" My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Respect
Change
France
" I graduated from college when I was 20. To get enough money to finish college, I went into the ROTC, and I was an officer in the Air Force before I could buy a drink. "
Melvin Van Peebles
College
Enough
Money
" Many times, I get young people asking, 'What do you think about black movies?' And I say, 'What are you talking about? You mean Hollywood movies that have black people in them?' It's gone back to that, and that's not the same thing as a black movie. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Say
Movies
Think
" I do what I want to do. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Want
" I'm not a normal director. You can't look at me that way. What's kept me alive is my technical skill at doing other things. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Skill
Alive
Doing
" I work from a subjective palette. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Work
Subjective
Palette
" What happened when 'Sweetback' made all that money, the studios were in a very difficult position. They wanted the money, but they didn't the message. This marked the advent of the caricatures which became known as blaxploitation. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Difficult
Position
Money
" Our minds are not our friends when they realize we have work to do - they're our enemies. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Realize
Friends
Minds
" The graphic novel is a great form that can be used to marry the book format with the movie. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Used
Movie
Book
" After 'Don't Play Us Cheap,' I got very busy with theater and Wall Street. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Play
Wall
Us
" You have to not let yourself believe you can't. Do what you can do within the framework of what you have, and don't look outside - look inside. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Believe
Inside
Look
" The key to empowerment is no more complicated than what Jesse Jackson said, 'We are somebody.' But the 'We are somebody' I would like to be in the larger sense: not just the urban African-American but homo sapiens in general - We are somebody. "
Melvin Van Peebles
Complicated
Empowerment
Key