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" You boil down your influences to a soup, and it all informs you. "

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" It's a no-win situation with politics; it's always going to be stressful. I'm more into the comedy of life. "

" I want to believe in ghosts. I love ghost stories. "

" As far as writing and directing, I'm very focused on the thriller genre. "

" Little Haley Joel Osment in 'The Sixth Sense' can see dead people. Well, I can see racist people. "

" Nobody wants to see sketch comedy that's the same sketch they've seen time and time again, or that's just a rehash of that thing. "

" New York is about as cosmopolitan as it gets. It's a fairly mixed and woke town, so there weren't a lot of situations growing up where I felt like the outsider or the alien. "

" The way I look at it is, when you allow people to submerge themselves into a story, they will react by thinking through what it's about. That's just so much more fun and effective, I think, than a lecture. "

" There's something kind of horrific about milk. Think about it! Think about what we're doing. Milk is kind of gross. "

" I think the lesson is that when you give black voices a platform and the opportunity to tell our story, we will tell good stories just like anybody else. "

" I'm a true believer in story. I think when you just tell people to think, people tend to get resistant and defensive and feel like you're accusing them of not thinking. "

" I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino, who takes time to figure out what his next movie is. "

" As kids, there's somehow the fear that these bullies can end your life if they want to. Everything is blown up, and occasionally that kind of awful thing does happen. "

" 'Thelma and Louise' was a pretty important film for me and still is. It's a social film about many things - gender, freedom - and it puts someone like me into the place of these protagonists. Watching that movie, you are living through the eyes of these women. "

" African-American music tends to have, at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it - sometimes full-fledged hope. "

African-American

" Part of the desire to live in a post-racial world includes the desire not to have to talk about racism, which includes a false perception that if you are talking about race, then you're perpetuating the notion of race. I reject that. "

" I'll say this: The scariest monster in the world is human beings and what we are capable of, especially when we get together. "

" I define 'social thriller' as thriller/horror movies where the ultimate villain is society. "

" It was definitely during the Obama administration that talking about racism, or calling it out, suddenly seemed taboo. It seemed like talking about race was somehow summoning the evil of racism. "

" We go to the theater to be entertained, but if what is left after you watch the movie is a sort of eye-opening perspective on some social issues, then it can be a really powerful piece of art. "

" When you start making a movie, people want to know: Who's the star power? And very early, I realized there's not a lot of 26-year-old black actors who have been given the opportunity to be the lead of a film. It's, like, Michael B. Jordan, and then we're done. "

" In the Trump era, it's way more obvious extreme racism exists. But there are still a lot of people who think, 'We don't have a racist bone in our bodies.' We have to face the racism in ourselves. "

" Racism comes in many different forms. Sometimes it's subtle, and sometimes it's overt. Sometimes it's violent, and sometimes it's harmless, but it's definitely here. It's something that I think we're all guilty of, and we just have to make sure that we deal with our own personal racism in the right way. "

" Any time I claimed to be white, that would be unacceptable. It just doesn't make sense in people's minds. If I'm white, how can I walk through a department store and still have people scared that I'm going to rob them? Which, that can still happen. "

" I love getting cheers. I love giving scares. Anything that really works with the audience makes me happy. "

" When I talk about movies like 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Stepford Wives,' I really noticed that these movies were able to address fears surround the women's lib movement in a way that was engaging, not preachy, but fun. "

" Obama was the best thing for black nerds everywhere. Finally we had a role model. Before Obama, we basically had Urkel. "

" You can track elections by who was playing that president on 'SNL' at that time. There's the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected. "

" Black people who want to do comedy go into standup, where our heroes opened a lot of doors. Improv doesn't have a ton of heroes that you can look to. "

" I think, before Obama, there was a glass ceiling. That's a big change. As a president, I think he was the best. I felt like I could trust his judgment, and he'd take a measured, empathetic approach. I don't see there ever being another Barack Obama. "

" There is something transformative if you're a black person cheering in a theater and turn to see a white person cheering for the same thing you are. "