Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

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

Melvin Van Peebles

Related Quotes:

" I work from a subjective palette. "

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

" 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

" 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

" If I had to find one characteristic that is most symbolic of me, I think I am tenacious. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

" I went to a number of schools when I was a kid on the south side of Chicago. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I intend to stay dangerous. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" When I was in the Air Force, if I walked into a restaurant, in about eight or nine minutes the M.P.'s would show up and drag me out because someone had called saying that someone was impersonating an officer. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" I'm from the Southside of Chicago. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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

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

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

" I've never been to film school. I had to leave this country to make a film. All they would let me do in Hollywood was be a messenger. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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

" When we talk about 'Sweetback,' yes, it stars the whole black movement, but it's also the first time an independent film made that kind of money and was that successful and taken seriously. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles