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" I was getting my Ph.D. in Holland - I speak Dutch - for a number of years before I moved to France because I had one of those offers you couldn't turn down. They offered me to come and do my films. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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" Music - some people just don't know that part of me. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Some People

Music

" Before me, music soundtracks were sort of afterthoughts. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Music

Sort

" I walk down the street; the garbagemen will shout at me, and we'll talk. That's a pleasure when people feel, 'If he can do it, I can, too.' "

Melvin Van Peebles

Down

Walk

" Blacks are tired of seeing whites saying, 'I understand you.' You need a black to direct a black film. "

" There is a downside to affordable technology, and that's mediocrity. I mean, just 'cause you can afford it don't mean you can do it. "

" With 'Sweetback,' I just put it together a little bit at a time. I didn't do it on anybody's grant. I did it like any other young executive - by cheating and stealing! "

" There's something on Wall Street called PIG - panic, ignorance, and greed. Those are the big sins. I'm not greedy, I knew I was ignorant, and I didn't panic. "

" My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff. "

" Over time, you accumulate a lot of life material. "

" Personally, I do movies the way I cook: I put in what I like in case nobody else likes it and I have to eat it for the rest of the week. "

" Somebody once asked me, 'Melvin, how'd you get to the top?' It was simple. Nobody would let me in at the bottom. "

Melvin Van Peebles

You

Bottom

" The studios didn't really take independent films seriously, till 'Sweetback' was such a financial success. "

" Making 'Sweetback' took an exorbitant amount of energy and time. "

" You have to not let yourself believe you can't. Do what you can do within the framework of what you have, and don't look outside - look inside. "

" I said to my kids, 'Learn the business of America if you want to be an artist in America. The rest of that stuff, the art part, you could pick up in an hour and a half.' "

" My life and career is defined by the constant pursuit of new forms of culture and self-expression. "

" I'm too short to play basketball and too nervous to steal. "

" In the morning, I get the paper. I look in the obituary column. If I don't see myself in there, I get up. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Look

See

" I'm not a normal director. You can't look at me that way. What's kept me alive is my technical skill at doing other things. "

" Don't ask me something if you don't want to know. Because I will tell you. "

" In trying to cross over to the mainstream, some people stopped writing what they witnessed. "

" If you look down a barrel of a gun... you don't forget it. "

" I work from a subjective palette. "

" Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks. "

" The key to empowerment is no more complicated than what Jesse Jackson said, 'We are somebody.' But the 'We are somebody' I would like to be in the larger sense: not just the urban African-American but homo sapiens in general - We are somebody. "

" I'm pretty much a loner. That's not good, bad, or indifferent. "

" Before I made 'Sweetback,' I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film. "

" I went to a number of schools when I was a kid on the south side of Chicago. "

" Scars are the price you pay for success. "

" Our minds are not our friends when they realize we have work to do - they're our enemies. "