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" I love graphic novels - I love reading them, I enjoyed writing them, I would love to go back and do them again. I hope I'm savvy enough to do them in the right way. "
John Ridley
Hope
Go
Enough
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" If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent. "
John Ridley
Debate
Best
Art
" Bad news: Complainers are rewarded for complaining. Indicative of the victim culture in which we live, people have not only come to expect something for nothing, but are then rewarded for how loudly they can ventilate their sense of having been victims of fraud. "
John Ridley
Live
Complaining
People
" I still have my first 'Black Lightning' that I got way back in the day, and my first 'Steel.' And I proudly display those comics, by the way. I have a lot of comics, but those are among the ones that mean the most to me. "
John Ridley
Me
Way
Black
" I understand politicos gotta make bank. But cloistering with the Hollywood elite is not how you prove you're a man of the people. "
John Ridley
Understand
You
Prove
" 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
" It does no good to believe in what does not exist to the point one cannot focus on what is real. That would be the greatest tragedy of any 'conspiracy.' "
John Ridley
Focus
Real
Believe
" 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
" While most trudge through their days straight-jacketed in the social compact, living for others as much as or more than for themselves, a select few excel. "
John Ridley
Others
Through
Days
" I've no desire to start a movement, to be the first name on an open petition, or to be the poster child for disgruntled writers. "
John Ridley
Movement
Child
Start
" I'm sorry, but chick fights are sexy. If you don't think so, you're either an uptight woman or a lying man. "
John Ridley
Woman
Man
You
" For the vast majority of those who are obese - those with a Body Mass Index over 30 - their size is their choice. They choose to take in more calories than they burn. They choose to take in high fat calories over low-fat ones. They choose to fad diet, if they choose to diet at all. "
John Ridley
Body
Fat
Diet
" It's funny: over time, if you're fortunate, you build a nice career, and you have these interesting moments, and I would not, looking back, trade any of them - 'Red Tails,' '12 Years a Slave' and 'Undercover Brother.' "
John Ridley
Brother
Looking Back
Red
" I don't really have anything against the French except that, as an American, I've been bred to despise them with the same zeal as soccer and Renny Harlin films. "
John Ridley
American
Same
Soccer
" 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
" With fear of stating the obvious: Freedom belongs to 'We the People,' not 'They the Politicians.' "
John Ridley
Freedom
People
Politicians
" In every election cycle that I can recall, there comes a moment - or a few - where charges of elitism and claims of commonness are wielded by presidential candidates like a sword and shield: 'Vote for me 'cause I'm one of you. It's the other guy who's out of touch.' "
John Ridley
You
Vote
Sword
" Even I haven't downed enough L.A. Kool-Aid to believe that somehow Hollywood movies are an overt instrument of morality. "
John Ridley
Even
Believe
Movies
" If the Olympic Games ever served a true altruistic purpose, they have long since outlived it. Yeah, the pursuit of athletic excellence, sportsmanship and international goodwill is plenty noble. But the modern Olympics are at best a vehicle for agitprop; at worst, a scandal magnet. "
John Ridley
Best
True
Purpose
" 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
" When times are tough, people want to escape to somewhere fantastic without having to pay actual escape-to-somewhere-fantastic cash. And offering a couple of hours away from the ordinary is what the movies do best. "
John Ridley
Movies
Escape
Tough
" 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
" 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
" 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
" When I go to business meetings, I'm still told way too often by some receptionist, 'The mail room is downstairs,' to believe that racial perceptions don't still exist. But I figure there are always going to be knuckleheads no matter how many of their herd get stuck in the tar pits of progress. "
John Ridley
Meetings
Believe
Business
" Perhaps the single most important thing for a child is to be with a loving, supportive family. And all things being equal, any child of any race should be placed with any qualified parents without restriction or special conditions. "
John Ridley
Loving
Child
Race
" Slavery was not a bad day on the job. It was not your boss yelling at you. It was not hard work for little pay. This was a full system of human subjugation. "
John Ridley
Work
Slavery
Job
" With writing, timing is everything. Being in the right place at the right time. "
John Ridley
Writing
Timing
Time
" Let's be very clear: Living 'unforgiven' is not the sole domain of blacks. It can be found in any successful person. "
John Ridley
Living
Found
Clear
" 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
" If there are two kinds of people in the world - DC Comics people and Marvel Comics people - what kind am I? Well, to be honest... I'm a Wildstorm kinda guy. In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I write for Wildstorm. But even if I didn't, I'd love what they do. No, seriously, I'd love their stuff. "
John Ridley
World
Kind
Seriously