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" I come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave. "

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" I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual. "

" To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture. We're making a movie. We're making it like we're putting on a play. "

" My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen. "

" I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff. "

" I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful. "

" I look at my movies; I call my movies 'the kid.' It's like I'm giving birth. I'm in the cocoon, you know? "

" I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed. "

" I'm a filmmaker. I'm always searching for the truth in everything I do. I demand it from my writing partner and my crew, actors, and so hopefully, we're making people think. "

" People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down. "

" I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world. "

" 'Precious' is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I'm prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against people who are darker than me. "

" At 19, I was in the streets making money. I was surviving. "

" I'm in a great place because I trust people behind the camera as I go off, and I still go back to my day job and do film. "

" 'Push' had a story, 'The Paperboy' story you could just throw up in the air and shoot holes through the book because the story wasn't as strong. But I felt the characters were stronger in 'The Paperboy'; they were vivid. "

" My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me. "

" I don't know - I haven't seen any of my movies after I finish them. I leave the editing room; I don't go back. "

" My kids tell me to Instagram, so I do that. I have a few thousand followers. "

" I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated. "

" I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals. "

" I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it. "

" My partner, Danny Strong, came to me with this idea of telling a story about my life and merging that with music and the hip-hop world. He wrote 'The Butler' and originally wanted to do 'Empire' also as a movie. "

" I like to show the grey area in all my characters. "

" When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar. "

" I come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents. "

" I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful. "

" I've met Shonda Rhimes a few times, and certainly she's an inspiration for me in television. "

" I'm always more comfortable and in a good place when I'm with friends because I know they trust me. I'm able to get great performances from people who trust me. "

" While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.' "

" If you really spend time with movies, it's three years of your life from beginning to end. I started out planting the seed with 'Monster's Ball' about independent cinema and raising money and that whole thing as a producer, and then it becomes easier for me. "

" I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful. "