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

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" I don't read the reviews, the blogs, or anything else. Instead, I feel the audience when I show the film. "

" My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender. "

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

" I don't know whether everybody likes the films that I do. I know that I love them, and I believe the way that I raise my kids that they will love them, and that's what most important to me. "

" I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed. "

" I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day. "

" I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire. "

" I'm always workin', man. I gotta pay the light bills. "

" That's the gift 'Precious' has given me. You really think you're telling a story about a fat black girl, and only fat black girls will understand it, and then you realize we're all Precious. "

" People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down. "

" I've had all types of beautiful girls tell me that they ugly when they look in the mirror, as if it's someone else's reflection they see. "

" When you're paying everybody nothing, I mean, they have homes to pay for. And my movies are like putting on theater. Nicole Kidman is at craft services, and John Cusack is moving furniture; there are no egos. The only ego is the story. "

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

" 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. "

" I love actors, and I'm very protective of them. I trust them. It's a mutual trust. "

" My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her. "

" I don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker. "

" I didn't have the sensibilities of your ordinary filmmaker, let alone your ordinary African-American filmmaker. My heroes were John Waters, Pedro Almodovar, and actors that were part of that world. "

African-American

" Some of my friends don't have a cell phone. Patti LaBelle doesn't have a cell phone. "

" 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. "

" I'm not really vegan. I'm vegan-ish. I have a piece of lamb every now and then. "

" I'm in a great place because I trust people behind the camera as I go off, and I still go back to my day job and do film. "

" Most of my friends are dead. I watched friends die in my arms at 5, 6, 8. When I grew up, the rest of my friends died of AIDS. "

" 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 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. "