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" When you write a show, every character is you to some extent. "

Courtney A. Kemp

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" I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" 'Power' would never have gotten on the air if the folks at Starz weren't saying to themselves, 'This is an underserved audience.' It was a financial decision, not a benevolent decision based on a need to change the industry. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Writers are, for the most part, crazy people. We're like Hephaestus of the forge. We're gnarled. We're curled over. We walk with a limp. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" The story always leads you where it's supposed to go. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" My dad was very, very invested in image. He felt that as a black person, the thing you could control was how did you look, how did you dress, how did you sound, how did you smell, how did you act. All of that stuff that you could control would absolutely have a strong impact on your access. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I am a black woman, and I'm proud of that, but as a showrunner, I want to think about what makes me unique beyond my race. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Humans are powerless, and even in our exercise of free will, either the Universe is gonna get down with your plan, or it isn't. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" When people watch 'Power' and they find out the showrunner is black, it's not surprising. What is surprising is that I am a woman and my background is not particularly urban. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I want to be a strong voice, period. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" When I first arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004 to try to break into television, I couldn't believe how segregated it was - how many neighborhoods were nearly all-white or all-black or -Asian or -Latino. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I always like to write myself into a corner. I think the best stuff comes from only having a few ways out. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" When it comes to power as it functions between humans, it all comes down to desire. If you know what someone wants, you can control them. It is as simple as that. And the reverse is also true: If you have control over your own desires, no one will ever own you. As humans, we are plagued with desire - it consumes us, it fuels us, it destroys us. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" There's this idea that you can have it all, but in my opinion, you can't - not if you're a perfectionist. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Great partnerships thrive because the people need each other. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" There's hip-hop music in 'Power,' but the show is not about the hip-hop industry. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" You don't keep your job if you don't make a great show. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Great power is setting a goal, working hard for it, and achieving it in exactly the way you expected with no consequences and no remainders after the long division is done. But does that happen to anyone? The unexpected always hitches a ride along with everything you planned. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I had very much wanted to be the very first black female editor-in-chief of 'Vogue.' Barring that, I wanted to work at 'Entertainment Weekly.' "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I always ask the actors, 'What have you never done before?' "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Not many people get to create a television show that actually makes it on the air. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" As a woman, I don't feel like I have a responsibility to create better female characters. I feel like I have a responsibility to create good characters. Because the truth is, those kinds of things ghettoize us even more as writers. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" There are so many different things that create an alchemy of success. Just like there are so many different things that create an alchemy of a failure. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" Being a showrunner is doing a bit of everything. It's not just writing. It's also management: managing actors, managing producers, managing a crew, being kind to people, being a good boss, observing deadlines. "

Courtney A. Kemp

" I'm from an upper-middle class background. But because there was no one of my race where I grew up, I was very isolated. I felt different from everybody else. "

Courtney A. Kemp