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" When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story. "

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" I definitely caught the acting bug, but that lasted for about two seconds when I found my way to L.A. and found that my talents were better suited behind the cameras. "

" 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 was always intrigued with European cinema, and hated most American cinema. I didn't like the one, two, three - boom! style, with a neat and tidy ending. That was never my scene. "

" I want to live in my truth. Tell me you don't like me, and I know it. But when you don't tell me, and you work behind my back, it's a lie, and I don't know how to fight that. "

" 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'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. "

" Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to. "

" My partner, Danny Strong, came to me with this idea of telling a story about my life and merging that with music and the hip-hop world. He wrote 'The Butler' and originally wanted to do 'Empire' also as a movie. "

" 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 believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated. "

" Here's the thing: I think the media underestimates the intelligence of the moviegoer. We need to be fulfilled. People want to sit down and think, and I try to make people think. "

" In L.A., I was a talent manager for many years. I represented many African-American actors. After a while, I became disheartened over the shortage of roles for African Americans. "

" As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace. "

" I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people. "

" I went to school at Radnor High School. And I went to a liberal arts college in St. Louis, Missouri, called Lindenwood College. "

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

" Stars make money on real movies. They make big money on real movies. To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture. "

" 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. "

" I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world. "

" I went from off-off Broadway. I would direct plays in Baldwin Hills. Almost Tyler Perry-like, really trying to express myself in that and not really knowing how to, knowing acting in story, but not really knowing how to technically hold a camera. "

" Some of the most provocative TV that I'm inspired by is in the U.K. You guys take it for granted, but in America, we can't do it. "

" I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it. "

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

" With TV, you're in people's houses every night. And you have so much time to tell stories. I don't know why I didn't do it before. "

" Rarely do celebrities and actors speak up for what they believe in. "

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

" 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 hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices. "

" I am so used to having two faces. A face that I had for black America and a face for white America. When Obama became president, I lost both faces. Now I only have one face. "

" 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. "