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" I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people. "

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" I didn't have the sensibilities of your ordinary filmmaker, let alone your ordinary African-American filmmaker. My heroes were John Waters, Pedro Almodovar, and actors that were part of that world. "

Lee Daniels

World

African-American

Alone

" I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day. "

" Most actors want the audience to like them, and that leads to bad acting. "

" I'm always workin', man. I gotta pay the light bills. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

My Life

Music

" I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire. "

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

" I'm still pulled over... We were nominated for two Oscars for 'Monster's Ball,' and I almost didn't make the Oscars because I got pulled over in Beverly Hills. "

" With TV, you're in people's houses every night. And you have so much time to tell stories. I don't know why I didn't do it before. "

" Theater was always in the backdrop. Nursing was a way to pay the bills. I wasn't a nurse; I had a nursing agency. "

" I don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker. "

" 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. "

" My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender. "

" I drank from colored water fountains and from the white water fountain just to see what it was like when I was a kid. What shocks me is that these kids today don't realize that this happened in many of our lifetimes. "

Lee Daniels

White

Fountain

" I'm not really vegan. I'm vegan-ish. I have a piece of lamb every now and then. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Reading

Experience

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

" I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full. "

" I see the world from a very specific perspective. It is how I grew up. It is what I am proud of, and I vocalize it. And for those who have not experienced my experience, it is odd, and it's not mainstream. "

Lee Daniels

I Am

Perspective

" I want to live in my truth. Tell me you don't like me, and I know it. But when you don't tell me, and you work behind my back, it's a lie, and I don't know how to fight that. "

Lee Daniels

Fight

Lie

" 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.' "

" Most times when I do a film, it starts out with one idea and ends up not being what I thought it was going to be. "

Lee Daniels

Out

Thought

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Good

People

" I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices. "

" 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. "

" I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era. "

" 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. "

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

" Here's the thing: I think the media underestimates the intelligence of the moviegoer. We need to be fulfilled. People want to sit down and think, and I try to make people think. "

" I am so used to having two faces. A face that I had for black America and a face for white America. When Obama became president, I lost both faces. Now I only have one face. "