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" I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full. "

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" Putting on a movie is like going to war - for me, at least. It's all about time; time is money, and we don't have it. So it's all about getting to know each other intimately quickly. You are with family members that you like or don't like, but you can't leave them because you're stuck with them. "

" My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her. "

" I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day. "

" It's hard for me to accept love. I wish I could lie to you and tell you that it's easy for me, but it's not. "

" America is fickle. You never know what they're going to go for. "

" I moved on to a nursing agency as a receptionist just to get a job, and ended up managing it, which led to me opening my own - say your mom is sick and needs someone to help her, then you call something like what I had: a home health agency. "

" I want to learn. I want to stretch my muscles as a director and work under different circumstances. "

" I see the world from a very specific perspective. It is how I grew up. It is what I am proud of, and I vocalize it. And for those who have not experienced my experience, it is odd, and it's not mainstream. "

" I've met Shonda Rhimes a few times, and certainly she's an inspiration for me in television. "

" Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to. "

" I come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents. "

" I like to show the grey area in all my characters. "

" I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films. "

" I come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave. "

" There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly. "

" When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar. "

" I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful. "

" Theater was always in the backdrop. Nursing was a way to pay the bills. I wasn't a nurse; I had a nursing agency. "

" When you're paying everybody nothing, I mean, they have homes to pay for. And my movies are like putting on theater. Nicole Kidman is at craft services, and John Cusack is moving furniture; there are no egos. The only ego is the story. "

" I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it. "

" My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender. "

" I have twins that I didn't want to have the life that I had. I didn't have a great life growing up. "

" At 19, I was in the streets making money. I was surviving. "

" Some of the most provocative TV that I'm inspired by is in the U.K. You guys take it for granted, but in America, we can't do it. "

" I've had all types of beautiful girls tell me that they ugly when they look in the mirror, as if it's someone else's reflection they see. "

" My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me. "

" I want to go to places that are unexpected of me because people really think they have me pegged. "

" My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films. "

" I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff. "

" With TV, you're in people's houses every night. And you have so much time to tell stories. I don't know why I didn't do it before. "