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" I think it's really cool that someone could have ovaries and the presidency. Growing up, I thought I could never be president because I was black and female. Now I know that's wrong. Within my own lifetime - that's different. Within my lifetime, interracial couples are more common. Within my own lifetime, biracial folks are able to claim that. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Cool

Thought

" There's this idea that you can have it all, but in my opinion, you can't - not if you're a perfectionist. "

" My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing. "

" Great power is setting a goal, working hard for it, and achieving it in exactly the way you expected with no consequences and no remainders after the long division is done. But does that happen to anyone? The unexpected always hitches a ride along with everything you planned. "

" If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other. "

" I don't write scenes where one person is right and one person is wrong. It's very much by design that everyone has a point of view that you as an audience member can understand. "

" The story always leads you where it's supposed to go. "

Courtney A. Kemp

You

Where

" My experience as a black woman in the industry is simply that often I was the only one in the room. Often I would be the only woman and the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several women but the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several people of color, but the only woman. "

" I don't want to be seen in a way where all I can do is what people expect of me. "

" I worked at 'Mademoiselle,' and then it shut, and I worked at 'GQ' for three years, during which I was freelancing. I wrote for 'Vibe.' I did music reviews. I wrote for 'Time Out.' I was desperate to get into 'Entertainment Weekly' or 'New York Magazine.' Like, desperate. "

" Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff. "

" When I watch television, I want to be surprised. "

" 'Power' would never have gotten on the air if the folks at Starz weren't saying to themselves, 'This is an underserved audience.' It was a financial decision, not a benevolent decision based on a need to change the industry. "

" There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true. "

" The revolution is that we can be anything. We don't have to be one thing or the other. The idea that it is my responsibility to represent only good black people... I mean, what are you talking about? That's not a character - that's a polemic. "

" 50 Cent and I really started to bond over our love for music. The first conversations we had were about Curtis Mayfield. "

" I always like to write myself into a corner. I think the best stuff comes from only having a few ways out. "

" I'm from an upper-middle class background. But because there was no one of my race where I grew up, I was very isolated. I felt different from everybody else. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Class

Race

" Comedians are on the road so much that when they're just getting to act and sit in one place, they're really grateful and just ready. "

" I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid. "

" My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently. "

" As a woman, I don't feel like I have a responsibility to create better female characters. I feel like I have a responsibility to create good characters. Because the truth is, those kinds of things ghettoize us even more as writers. "

" Any underrepresented audience loves to see themselves on TV, but what's more important is that we're writing about universal themes - good versus evil, can you change yourself? These themes resonate for everyone. "

" My dad was born with no money. "

" When I first arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004 to try to break into television, I couldn't believe how segregated it was - how many neighborhoods were nearly all-white or all-black or -Asian or -Latino. "

" I remember watching episodes of 'The Sopranos' and being filled with dread knowing what was coming or anticipating what was coming. I don't think that that's always a bad thing. I think sometimes the audience needs a little catharsis held away from them. "

" I really do love male characters, in some ways, for the fact that they get surprised when they're vulnerable. Women are more surprised by their strength. "

" When human beings say they have power, it always makes me laugh a little bit. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Power

Always

" I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying. "

" In 2011, when my father passed away - I had my daughter first; I had her on January 24, and I had a seizure during the delivery. I lived through that, and five weeks later, my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and I lived through that. And then my daughter had surgery, and I lived through that. "