Spike Lee

I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they’re just extra sensitive.

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That’s what I love.

Any time you talk about the look of the film, it’s not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.

I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

Everything I do is always scrutinised. But that’s all I’ll say about that.

We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it’s not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts.

I’d like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they’ve forgotten.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

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.

Since the days of slavery, if you were a good singer or dancer, it was your job to perform for the master after dinner.

I get offered to do stuff where the money’s nice but it’s not something I want to do – I get offered a lot of commercials too.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.

My cousin Malcolm Lee is also a filmmaker.

Violence is a part of America. I don’t want to single out rap music. Let’s be honest. America’s the most violent country in the history of the world, that’s just the way it is. We’re all affected by it.

A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn’t intend to be there.

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.

There’s a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we’ve arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.

Right now a lot of people are still choosing to go to Toronto instead of shooting in New York City, something I haven’t done and something I hope I’ll never have to do.

I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn’t black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.

I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.

I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I’m a New York filmmaker.

I don’t dictate, you don’t dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.

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.

If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they’re killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We’d not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.

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.