I think people, if you really want to be happy, you have to find God yourself, and you're going to have to have a personal, one-on-one relationship and not look to get through these traditions or these rituals and all this crazy stuff when you could talk to him right here, right now, anytime, anywhere, any place, from any position. And that's the kind of relationship you want, not a standard.

We don't do movies for the industry. We do movies for the fans, for the people. If the industry give you a trophy or not, or pat you on the back or not, it's nice, but it's not something you should dwell on.

I think you have to find how the machine can work for you. That's what I mean by "attaching yourself to the machine," 'cause the machine is going to be there, and you can rage against the machine, which is cool, but there's ways that you can benefit off the machine if you're savvy enough and you're sharp enough, smart enough. We all got to live and eat.

I've got a basketball signed by all the greats from Julius Irving to Oscar Robinson. It was at an All Star game I got them all to sign it. So that ain't going nowhere. I'm going to die with that in my casket.

I believe our society has fell into a pyramid system where there's people relegated to the bottom of that pyramid and there's people that feel like they're entitled to the top of that pyramid.

I figured, when I make a movie, especially earlier in my career, one thing I was going to make sure was that the movie doesn't cost a lot and that it has potential to make a lot of money. That's how you get respect in Hollywood.

I like to tell the streets what the political climate is, and I like to tell any politicians that's listening what the streets think. And sometimes people get nicked up and bruised up, but I usually have a lot of good medicine for that.