Spike Lee Quotes

I want to tell stories, I don't really try to get boxed in by a specific genre.

We're the most violent nation on earth. There's no getting away from that. But you've got to look at it on a broader level.

When I went to school, you had to take art, you had to play an instrument. You had to play an instrument. But it's all degraded since then. I do not know what kind of nation we are that is cutting art, music, and gym out of the public-school curriculum.

Surprises are good. I'm not of the thinking where you tell the audience everything. Sometimes I don't even want to see the trailers. You see the trailer, you've seen the movie.

I'm always open. I try not to have a closed mind. In fact the only reason why I'm able to continue to make films since 1986 is I have been adaptable. If I weren't flexible I sure wouldn't be making films this many years as I've been doing it. I've been making a film a year almost since 1986 and that's hard. That ain't easy.

You have to do the research. If you don't know about something, then you ask the right people who do.

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'm trying to keep up with what's happening in this turbulent world.

As a people we do not need anyone else's stamp of approval.

I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.

If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms.

There’s always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned.

I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I'm a New York filmmaker.

There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.

If you can't take a hit, you're not going to last long, that's for sure.

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.

We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it's not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts.

Power is knowing your past.

There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.

I knew I was never going to play professional sport, but I loved playing and I went to all the games I could afford to.

It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.

I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.

What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.

I don't think I'm a total pessimist, so I think you can find hope in all my films.

If people go to IMDB, they will see that I'm very comfortable with independent cinema, and doing studio films too. For me this is not an either/or situation.

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.

I've got "Sometimers." Sometimes I remember and sometimes I forget.

I am trying to stay away from this position of me "returning to my roots." As if my roots are that I'm only comfortable working on low-budget, small films. That's not the case at all.

Most human beings will not stand in front of a stage and tell you about the bad things they did.

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

People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world.

I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.

I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.

I collect names for characters. Names are valuable; they can be your first source of insight into a character.

I'm worried just as much about Donald Trump as that crazy guy in North Korea - and he has a nuclear code. I'm worrying about that.

As we move toward the millennium, the year 2000, the most powerful nations are not those that have nuclear bombs, but those that control the media. That's where the battle is being fought; that is how you control people's minds.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

For me, I believe in God, God is real.

A woman who is very secure in herself, what she's about, what she wants to do, who probably figures that she's a prize catch-sooner or later he's going to come around.

I don't see any negativity with what Brad Pitt is doing with his Make It Right Foundation, or what Sean Penn is trying to do in Haiti.

I am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films - I love them both.

Because many advances have happened, we've lost the urgency (and that's just human nature) that we had before, when we couldn't vote, couldn't use mass transportation, or drink from the fountains.

Amongst black people, you have always heard it said that once a black man reaches a certain level, especially if you are an entertainer, you get a white trophy woman. I didn't make that up.

My cousin Malcolm Lee is also a filmmaker.

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.

I get offered to do stuff where the money's nice but it's not something I want to do - I get offered a lot of commercials too.