[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.

I just hope that my films will survive me.

[James] Baldwin was a revelation for me, the kind of revelation that follows you all your life because you can go back to it. It's not just about stories. It's about philosophy. It's about criticizing the world. It's about deconstructing the world around you.

Just try to be yourself and resist complacency and ignorance. All you can do is work, work; work and be disciplined.

I felt that the world, and in particular this country, were going in circles. What had happened 40 or 50 years ago was happening again, but even in a worse form - that we were sinking into a lot of ignorance and a lot of superficial change.

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

There are only one or two geniuses every century.