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" No one - black, white, or any different - walks away from a three-picture deal with a studio. That's every filmmaker's dream. But it wasn't mine. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" Why not have fun, man? If I feel like doing something, I just go ahead and do it. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" When I was a kid, from 10 years old, I worked every day for my dad, huh? Never played basketball. I never played tennis - never did. We worked so that we could eat. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" Scars are the price you pay for success. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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! "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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 graduated from college when I was 20. To get enough money to finish college, I went into the ROTC, and I was an officer in the Air Force before I could buy a drink. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I intend to stay dangerous. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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. "

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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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.' "

Melvin Van Peebles

" The artistic world is one of high nuance. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" It must be horrible to do things that you don't like hoping to please other people, and they don't like it either, and you've got to eat it. "

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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" After 'Don't Play Us Cheap,' I got very busy with theater and Wall Street. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I'm from the Southside of Chicago. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" If I was just a creator, I would still be back in the Lincoln annex in the Post Office. "

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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" I work from a subjective palette. "

Melvin Van Peebles