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

Melvin Van Peebles

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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. "

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

" 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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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

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

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

" 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

" 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

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

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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 intend to stay dangerous. "

Melvin Van Peebles

" I do what I want to do. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" Me and modesty don't mix. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

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

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

Melvin Van Peebles

" Don't ask me something if you don't want to know. Because I will tell you. "

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

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

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

Melvin Van Peebles