Quotes By Spike Lee

And one thing Hollywood does well is sequels.

What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

My grandmother lived to be 100 years old. Her grandmother was a slave, yet she was a college graduate in the Spellman class of 1917. She taught art for 50 years and she saved her Social Security checks for her children's education.

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.

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 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.

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 am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films - I love them both.

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.

First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms.

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

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

'Do the Right Thing' was my first union film. I looked at the rosters, and for the most part, it was white males. Especially the Teamsters. So we had some conversations.

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.

You have to do the research. If you don't know about something, then you ask the right people who do.

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.

I had a great education. From kindergarten to John Dewey High School in Coney Island, I am public-school educated.

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 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.

I tend to favour films that have multiple plot and story lines, multiple characters and ensemble pieces.

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.

My cousin Malcolm Lee is also a filmmaker.

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.

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.

I knew I was never going to play professional sport, but I loved playing and I went to all the games I could afford to.

I am very fortunate I can send my kids to private school, but everybody does not have the money. If you cannot get your kid in a good school today, your kids are going to be behind the eight ball.

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

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 like acting; not in front of the camera.