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" I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that. "

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" I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still? "

" There is no monolithic black culture. It's completely different for someone born in Harlem to someone born in Houston or London with one exception, which is that people contributing to black culture have the experience of being black. "

" I've been taught through life experience that, like, I'd better open my mouth and quickly define myself in a new space and with new people because, if I don't, I will be defined. "

" My thing is to try to tell the truth as honestly as possible. For me, the weight is, how can I tell the truth through fiction, the best that I can? "

" I tend to take on too many projects at the same time, but as I've always done, I will continue to shift my focus onto whatever feels most urgent in the moment. "

" To surrender your ego, you have to have one first. "

" I took an internship at Focus Features while I was in film school. I was really interested in how specialty movies were marketed and found their audience despite being about topics that were outside of the mainstream. "

" I think we all have identity crises throughout our lives. "

" I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves. "

" I think I have a threshold for taking things too seriously. "

" Here's the thing: I come from a filmmaking background, so this concept of sort of overseeing a television show but not directing was, in general, not weird, but I had to get used to what that felt like. My initial instinct was, 'I want to direct as much of this as possible.' But the logistics of making of TV, that's just not possible. "

" Hollywood is a world where the only thing that gets green-lit is something that made money the last year. "

" There is a difference between being offended and being prejudiced and even being bigoted against. There's a difference between that and racism. "

" Hip-hop isn't dead by any means, but it's not something I define my black identity with. "

" I definitely have fun commenting on the real world and interpreting through the 'Dear White People' lens. "

" I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition. "

" You can't get along in society without an identity. "

" I tend to be collaborative, and I want to hear other people's ideas. Especially with actors, I want them to feel like they can breathe life into their characters. "

" Racism is over in the 'Star Trek' future, but they found a way to comment on sexism and racism in the present day in such a subversive and smart way, you know? "

" The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies. "

" I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial. "

" Daring to make films of any kind and thus invite the possibility of ridicule was an internal battle of mine for many years as I worked on the screenplay for what would become 'Dear White People' beginning at the end of George W. Bush's second term. "

" Everyone is very aware that, not only do we have a race problem, but it's so pervasive that it affects national and global politics on a scale that I don't think a lot of people imagined. "

" We get caught in our little silos and end up working against ourselves. And I think social media culture really encourages that, because you're really just shouting into a void hoping someone picks up on what you're saying. "

" Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group. "

" Everyone at a performing arts schools is weird. The weirder you were, the better. If you weren't weird in some way, they'd look at you and be like, 'Who's that square?' "

" There was a time when a studio executive would really love something and have no proof at all that it would work and just do it because they believed in it. That's how 'Star Wars' happened. "

" If you examine any aspect of the human condition long enough, you really do have to start laughing at it. Because the business of being human is kind of ridiculous. "

" If you walk out of a movie that's meant to be about race in our country, and you're feeling good and happy, then that movie didn't tell you all of the truth. It's too big of an issue, and it's too complicated for you to feel good. It's something you should feel like you need to talk about. "

" I never quite lived up to the image of the black man as I saw it growing up. I was never listening to the right music at the right time or wearing the right clothes at the right time. I was still listening to Michael Jackson, and everyone had sort of moved on to gangster rap. Alanis Morissette when everyone else was listening to En Vogue. "