Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I didn't know I was a good director, and I mean that sincerely. I had done a film a long time ago called 'Cold Around the Heart.' Nobody saw it, and it didn't turn out the way I wanted to. "
John Ridley
Good
Heart
Time
Related Quotes:
" Facts tend to take the punch out of a good hate rant and are therefore left best unsaid. "
John Ridley
Best
Facts
Good
" Conservative talkers love to throw numbers around: their ratings and their audience size. And to be sure, they have a sizable audience which numbers in the tens of millions. But having people tune in and being able to dictate their actions are two different things. "
John Ridley
Conservative
Two
Love
" There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.' "
John Ridley
Entertainment
Fresh
Class
" If some of us can get an Oscar for extolling that it's hard out there for a pimp, why can't others of us admonish: 'Then quit acting like a pimp'? "
John Ridley
Why
Others
Acting
" Republicans can be a funny bunch. They're against affirmative action, but they always seem to be able to find people of color to fill a slot just when they're most needed. "
John Ridley
Action
Just
People
" When it comes to fighting for freedom, those who are willing to fight should not be limited by our bigotry. Only rewarded with our gratitude. "
John Ridley
Freedom
Fighting
Fight
" To this day, the only argument against Obama that critics can seem to come up with involves admitting he's better than them - though they certainly season it with some racism. You know, he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard. "
John Ridley
Racism
Food
Know
" Not only does Hollywood make money - it seems to make better movies during recessions. I'm sure a lot of studio executives wish we could have one every year. "
John Ridley
Hollywood
Wish
Movies
" 'The Martin Show,' the 'Jamie Foxx show,' 'Living Single,' 'The Wayans Brothers,' 'Hanging with Mr. Cooper...' Some of these shows were good, some were typical television, but they facilitated a lot of work for blacks in front of as well as behind the camera. A lot of us in Hollywood thought it was the beginning of a real racial breakthrough. "
John Ridley
Beginning
Camera
Good
" Just mention the idea of warrantless wiretaps and expect to get hit up with a congressional investigation. But give somebody an avatar and a URL, and he can't tweet, post or hyperlink enough personal information about himself to as many people as possible. "
John Ridley
Enough
Personal
Information
" Much as banks don't care where your money's coming from, the Electoral College is all 'don't ask, don't care' when it comes to votes. "
John Ridley
Money
Electoral College
College
" The thing about working in Hollywood is that, at some point, you really get tired of hearing how godless you are, and how if you and the rest of the heathens in Tinsel town would put more God-centric shows on TV, people wouldn't be abandoning prime time in favor of their Bible study classes. "
John Ridley
Tired
You
Bible
" Our touchstones of slavery are 'Song of the South,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Birth of a Nation.' It's hard to separate the cinematic quality from the underlying themes. I appreciate the films, but the message was repugnant. "
John Ridley
Song
Wind
Appreciate
" Fact is, awards shows were never really about recognizing achievement. They were a publicity ploy cooked up in the late 1920s by MGM topper Louie Mayer and his newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which was itself, back in the day, nothing but a front organization to discourage unionizing. "
John Ridley
Achievement
Organization
Day
" I don't think I'm alarmist. I'm more disappointed by the euphemisms in some instances than outright bigotry. Now, to me, you walk around with a Klan hat on or you've got a swastika on you arm, you just look like a dope, you know what I mean? "
John Ridley
Think
Me
Walk
" Governmental intervention and personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive issues, but they do frame a 'do it ourselves' vs. 'what are you doing for us' debate. For the black community, that's a debate that's been raging at least as far back as the W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington philosophical grudge matches. "
John Ridley
Black
Community
Debate
" As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle. "
John Ridley
Me
Thought
Process
" In the Everybody-Give-Me-A-Hug victim culture in which we live, the obese want a spot at the table along with those who face discrimination based on the way that God or Nature or our Intelligent Designer created us. "
John Ridley
God
Culture
Nature
" I don't want an underachiever working on my car's transmission. Why would I want someone regular sitting in the Oval Office? Sorry, give me somebody who has demonstrated a capacity to excel. "
John Ridley
Sorry
Sitting
Me
" With comics, you don't have to worry so much about budgetary constraints. In film and television, however fanciful you want to be, someone can come up to you and go, 'Okay, this is going to cost X amount of dollars, and we only have so many days to film this.' With graphic novels, you can have that alien invasion you've always wanted to see. "
John Ridley
Someone
Television
You
" Fanboys are a creator's blessing and curse. If a fanboy likes you, they love you. Obsessively. If you cross them with some plot point or story direction they reject, expect to be wholly and continually eviscerated across the Internet. "
John Ridley
Blessing
Love
Story
" There are some individuals who look at graphic novels as 'canon,' and they cannot change in any way, shape or form, and that's what makes them in some ways good fans. "
John Ridley
Fans
Way
Shape
" There is not a country on earth whose people don't deserve to be free and safe. "
John Ridley
Deserve
Earth
Country
" I can tell you from personal experience it gets a little tiring having to make the rounds on cable shows to explain 'what's up with black folks.' "
John Ridley
I Can
Personal
Experience
" Every president to hold office has espoused some version of Americanism - the truths that we hold self-evident, even when those truths are not always in evidence. But for all their grand rhetoric and mostly good deeds, none was able to seal the deal on the trifecta of equality, plurality and socioeconomic ascendancy. Obama has. "
John Ridley
Hold
Equality
Good
" With fear of stating the obvious: Freedom belongs to 'We the People,' not 'They the Politicians.' "
John Ridley
Freedom
People
Politicians
" Bigots are actually funny to me in the way that people who still wear parachute pants give me a chuckle. "
John Ridley
Funny
Way
Me
" Obama is the New Generation and the hot light of a dawn that goes way beyond clever talk of morning in America. "
John Ridley
Generation
Hot
Light
" Reactionary conservatives are smiling through the racial apocalypse. To them, race baiting is a joke, as 'humorist' Rush Limbaugh will tell you when he's calling Mexicans 'stupid.' Or it's a matter of semantics when they claim that Sonia Sotomayor is a 'racialist' which, far as I can tell, is the smooth jazz version of being a racist. "
John Ridley
I Can
Smiling
Stupid
" I don't know what's hipper: to Facebook or to Twitter. I just know for me, personally, discretion never went out of style. "
John Ridley
Style
Just
Never