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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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" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Mean

You Can Do It

Technology

" I intend to stay dangerous. "

" 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. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Down

Speak

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

Melvin Van Peebles

Find

Think

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Scars are the price you pay for success. "

" Our minds are not our friends when they realize we have work to do - they're our enemies. "

" 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

" Somebody once asked me, 'Melvin, how'd you get to the top?' It was simple. Nobody would let me in at the bottom. "

Melvin Van Peebles

You

Bottom

" I went to a number of schools when I was a kid on the south side of Chicago. "

" Making 'Sweetback' took an exorbitant amount of energy and time. "

" Big publishers want you to change this and change that. I'd rather go to a little publisher - who needs the tsuris. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Big

You

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

" 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. "

" I do what I want to do. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Want

" Why not have fun, man? If I feel like doing something, I just go ahead and do it. "

" Before me, music soundtracks were sort of afterthoughts. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Music

Sort

" 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. "

" 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.' "

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

" 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. "

" Me and modesty don't mix. "

Melvin Van Peebles

Modesty

Mix

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

" I'm pretty much a loner. That's not good, bad, or indifferent. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "