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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
Ignorant
Greed
Pig
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" My life and career is defined by the constant pursuit of new forms of culture and self-expression. "
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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.' "
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" Don't ask me something if you don't want to know. Because I will tell you. "
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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. "
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" I went to a number of schools when I was a kid on the south side of Chicago. "
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" The artistic world is one of high nuance. "
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" If I was just a creator, I would still be back in the Lincoln annex in the Post Office. "
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" The key to empowerment is no more complicated than what Jesse Jackson said, 'We are somebody.' But the 'We are somebody' I would like to be in the larger sense: not just the urban African-American but homo sapiens in general - We are somebody. "
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" A bumblebee can't fly. He's aerodynamically unsound. But he doesn't know that. "
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" Somebody once asked me, 'Melvin, how'd you get to the top?' It was simple. Nobody would let me in at the bottom. "
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" Over time, you accumulate a lot of life material. "
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" In the morning, I get the paper. I look in the obituary column. If I don't see myself in there, I get up. "
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" 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.' "
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" 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. "
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" There is a downside to affordable technology, and that's mediocrity. I mean, just 'cause you can afford it don't mean you can do it. "
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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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" My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff. "
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" I'm from the Southside of Chicago. "
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" 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. "
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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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College
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Money
" Scars are the price you pay for success. "
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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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" 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 intend to stay dangerous. "
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" 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. "
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" Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks. "
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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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