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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.' "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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" 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! "

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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. "

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" When I got to Paris, they welcomed me and showed my films. It was August of 1960, and I didn't have a penny in my pocket. But they had done something very dangerous: They had given me encouragement. "

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

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

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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. "

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" As a navigator, I started studying astronomy because sometimes you're not able to use the equipment, so you'd have to do it the old-fashioned way, figuring out what you were seeing in the sky. "

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

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

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

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

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" 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. "

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

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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. "

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" I work from a subjective palette. "

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" The graphic novel is a great form that can be used to marry the book format with the movie. "

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" Me and modesty don't mix. "

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" You've got to really check on what you're doing: check and recheck it seven other times to be prepared. Sometimes, people get carried away with the artistic-ness of the endeavor and don't quite have their game face on when the time comes. It's always a pretty costly mistake. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I do what I want to do. "

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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. "

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. "

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" 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

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

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" I intend to stay dangerous. "

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" 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. "

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" 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