America doesn't have the moral right to tell other people what to do. To say the whole world has to fall into line is you-know-what. I hope more people will rise up.

Everybody does what they want to do for their own specific reasons.

I don't like to use the word 'remake', I think reinterpretation is a better word. It's just a matter of respecting the source, and then trying to make your own film, and trying not to be inhibited by being so beholden to every single thing... We respect the source, but we make changes to it.

I never understood the concept of showing everything in the trailer. Why go to a movie if there's no surprise? I can't do it like that.

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

'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.

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.