I don't find inspiration on Wall Street. I don't find that in Beverly Hills. I don't find that in places where opportunity resides unbridled, and I think the real creative energy and the real juice is in where people are caught, in the economic abyss.

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.

I became an anti-fascist, and the more I saw what was happening to the peoples of Europe, the Jews, the more I saw the deep cruelty and inhumanity of that system and its philosophy of white supremacy.

I didn't like The Wiz and it wasn't because black people were doing it. I didn't like The Wiz because it was a badly made movie off a classic. Why are you remaking something unless you have something better in mind?

I come from a sense of struggle, a sense of using the instruments that were given to me to manipulate the environment in which I found myself, and joined up with those who are equally as skillful at manipulating that environment, as was I.

We have the opportunity now to look at the two billion people in the world who suffer from the most abject poverty, hunger, disease, and devastation. Add to that another two billion people who are just plain poor. If you look into the world of those caught in economic oppression, illiteracy, disease, and sexism, then you'll understand more clearly what we have to do.

Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.