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" I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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" If you wanna be your own boss, you gotta work your way up - have the skills. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" It... does... not... have... to... be... pointed out all the time. Like, 'Isn't it great that you're black, and you're a woman?' Isn't it great that the show's good? I would just love for it not to be a thing - for it just to be, like, super norm. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" The show runner's the boss until the network shows up. And then they're the boss, because it's their money. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" 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. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" 50 Cent is a brilliant marketer. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" When I was a little girl, my imagination was what helped me deal with some sort of negative elements in my childhood. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Around me, there's always music playing. It just calms me down; it soothes me. It helps me write. It helps me with my mood. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" My dad was born with no money. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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

Courtney A. Kemp

" When we started on 'Power,' I was committed to respecting the differences among Spanish dialects: Dominican, Nuyorican, Mexican, etc. I wanted the language our characters spoke to be as specific as possible, to reflect New York as it is. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I am not going to say that only people of color can write people of color, because that means only white people can write white people, and that's not OK. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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

Courtney A. Kemp

" When people watch 'Power' and they find out the showrunner is black, it's not surprising. What is surprising is that I am a woman and my background is not particularly urban. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" There's hip-hop music in 'Power,' but the show is not about the hip-hop industry. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" People are realizing that there is a financial consequence to not opening doors. It doesn't mean that they are any more inclusive in their hearts - it means they're more inclusive in their wallets. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" If you look at the back pages of 'New York Times Magazine,' and they talk about these 6.5-million-dollar condos with a great view, like you're going to pay for a great view. Well, the top floor of the projects have a great view, too. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I say a prayer several times a day about what I can control and what I can't control. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" 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

" When it comes to power as it functions between humans, it all comes down to desire. If you know what someone wants, you can control them. It is as simple as that. And the reverse is also true: If you have control over your own desires, no one will ever own you. As humans, we are plagued with desire - it consumes us, it fuels us, it destroys us. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" 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. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Not many people get to create a television show that actually makes it on the air. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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

Courtney A. Kemp

" The Shawshank Redemption' isn't a movie about a black guy and a white guy who become friends - it's a movie about freedom. At the end, the cathartic experience of seeing our own emotions reflected back to us, that's the purpose of storytelling. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I'm seeing more and more people of color do what I do as showrunners, and that's so great. I would love to get to the point where we don't have to talk about it anymore. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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

Courtney A. Kemp

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

Courtney A. Kemp

" I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" When you pretend to be an authority on everything, it forces your subordinates to defer to your opinion - which may not be the most informed in the room. If you have humility concerning the gaps in your experience or ability, it allows others to shine. "

Courtney A. Kemp