Quote collection
130 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen. A lot of times, an opportunity might fall into your lap, but you have to be ready for that opportunity. You can’t sit there waiting on it. A lot of times you are going to have to get out there and make it happen."
"You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me."
"There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic."
"I think black people have to be in control of their own image because film is a powerful medium. We can't just sit back and let other people define our existence."
"I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets."
"I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten."
"Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest."
"It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work."
"When you love something it's not a job anymore."
"When I went to school, you had to take art, you had to play an instrument. You had to play an instrument. But it's all degraded since then. I do not know what kind of nation we are that is cutting art, music, and gym out of the public-school curriculum."
"All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love."
"American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them."
"We've got to turn this backward thinking around where ignorance is championed over intelligence. Young black kids being ridiculed by their peers for getting A's and speaking proper English: that's criminal."
"I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect."
"Power is knowing your past."
"I ain't Martin Luther King. I don't need a dream. I have a plan."
"I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night."
"Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell."
"It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are."
"I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion."