From a young age, [James Baldwin] was watching all those different films. He's watching John Wayne killing off the Indians. He came to the point that the Indians were him. You had to educate yourself because the movies were not educating you. The movies were giving you a reflection of you that was not the truth. That's the trick. The movie was also giving a reflection of what the country is. Basically, a country that wanted itself to be innocent. That's the ambivalence of Hollywood.

The system gives you two minutes to phrase a whole history.

[James] Baldwin is needed even more today because he helps you focus to the essential, to what is important.

[James] Baldwin said the real question is not when there will be the first Negro president in this country. The important question is what country he's going to be the president of.

The role James Baldwin played in my life is incommensurable as stated above. He helped, along with a few others, to shape the man that I am today. My debt to him is invaluable.

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

I just hope that my films will survive me.