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" 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

Kid

Eat

Day

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" Music - some people just don't know that part of me. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Some People

Music

" 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. "

" In the morning, I get the paper. I look in the obituary column. If I don't see myself in there, I get up. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Look

See

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks. "

" 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. "

" I'm not a normal director. You can't look at me that way. What's kept me alive is my technical skill at doing other things. "

" My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The artistic world is one of high nuance. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" I didn't even know I had a legacy. "

" 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

Air Force

Restaurant

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

" 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. "

" I work from a subjective palette. "

" I intend to stay dangerous. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Melvin Van Peebles

Find

Think

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

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

" 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. "

" 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

Down

Walk