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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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" What some folks find funny, other folks find tragic. "

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" One day, I was sitting in a movie theater, and I said, 'What the hell? I can do better than that.' "

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" It wasn't really me who invented rap. I stole the idea from Aristide Bruant. "

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" If you give people something they want, they'll come and see it. "

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" I'm from the Southside of Chicago. "

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" A bumblebee can't fly. He's aerodynamically unsound. But he doesn't know that. "

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" I have no illusions about running. I hate running. If I could feel as good as I felt at 30 without running, I wouldn't do it, but that's not the way it works! So - no pain, no gain. "

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" I used to be the third person in the secret jets we had - they were secret at the time - a jet bomber that flew at immense heights carrying atomic bombs. "

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" Blacks had a huge role in settling the West, but you'd never know it from Western movies. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" Big publishers want you to change this and change that. I'd rather go to a little publisher - who needs the tsuris. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

" Many times, I get young people asking, 'What do you think about black movies?' And I say, 'What are you talking about? You mean Hollywood movies that have black people in them?' It's gone back to that, and that's not the same thing as a black movie. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I didn't even know I had a legacy. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" Truth of the matter is, I can't even read or write music. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

" The artistic world is one of high nuance. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" What happened when 'Sweetback' made all that money, the studios were in a very difficult position. They wanted the money, but they didn't the message. This marked the advent of the caricatures which became known as blaxploitation. "

Melvin Van Peebles