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" If you really spend time with movies, it's three years of your life from beginning to end. I started out planting the seed with 'Monster's Ball' about independent cinema and raising money and that whole thing as a producer, and then it becomes easier for me. "

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" My partner, Danny Strong, came to me with this idea of telling a story about my life and merging that with music and the hip-hop world. He wrote 'The Butler' and originally wanted to do 'Empire' also as a movie. "

Lee Daniels

My Life

Music

" 'Precious' is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I'm prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against people who are darker than me. "

" My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen. "

" I look at my movies; I call my movies 'the kid.' It's like I'm giving birth. I'm in the cocoon, you know? "

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

" I went to school at Radnor High School. And I went to a liberal arts college in St. Louis, Missouri, called Lindenwood College. "

" Most times when I do a film, it starts out with one idea and ends up not being what I thought it was going to be. "

Lee Daniels

Out

Thought

" I started casting. I cast music videos, but I kept getting fired from jobs because I was iconoclastic in my ways of casting. "

" I love black women. I live for them. They are everything to me. I'm obsessed with them. They are sophisticated, resilient and smarter than me. "

" 'Empire' was a very traumatic experience for me. It was very schizophrenic, and it wasn't what I expected it to be. "

Lee Daniels

Empire

Expected

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

Lee Daniels

Fickle

Know

" 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. "

" Stars make money on real movies. They make big money on real movies. To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture. "

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

" I had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels. "

" I wanted to make a black 'Dynasty.' "

" The ratings board is completely different when it comes to film versus the television arena. "

" I'm still pulled over... We were nominated for two Oscars for 'Monster's Ball,' and I almost didn't make the Oscars because I got pulled over in Beverly Hills. "

" My mom knew early on that I was gay, and she knew that I had to get out of the ghetto. "

" My kids tell me to Instagram, so I do that. I have a few thousand followers. "

" While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.' "

" 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. "

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

" I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals. "

" I want to see movies I can walk away from and say, 'Wait, what happened there? Hold up, what did I just see? What?' and then it connects to something that you personally, unequivocally know to be truth. "

" 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. "

" I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices. "

" 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. "

" When you have a lot of siblings, you always do something to feel special. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Job

Mom