Spike Lee Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Spike Lee quote about:
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“I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen. A lot of times, an opportunity might fall into your lap, but you have to be ready for that opportunity. You can’t sit there waiting on it. A lot of times you are going to have to get out there and make it happen.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I think there's a lot of hope in my work. I don't think I'm a total pessimist, so I think you can find hope in all my films. Some more than others, but there's definitely... I think we want to convey the feeling of hope with the montage at the end.”
-- Spike Lee -
“'25th Hour,' like a lot of my films, takes place in New York City. I've been very fortunate to make films in the city that I live. I mean, it's great going home at night instead of being on location.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Most human beings will not stand in front of a stage and tell you about the bad things they did.”
-- Spike Lee -
“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.”
-- Spike Lee -
“He revolutionized music videos. Before Michael Jackson, MTV refused to play African-American artists.”
-- Spike Lee -
“American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.”
-- Spike Lee -
“You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me.”
-- Spike Lee -
“All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.”
-- Spike Lee -
“It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I think black people have to be in control of their own image because film is a powerful medium. We can't just sit back and let other people define our existence.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Making films has got to be one of the hardest endeavors known to humankind.”
-- Spike Lee -
“What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.”
-- Spike Lee -
“The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes.”
-- Spike Lee -
“We’ve gone through the names—Negro, African American, African, Black. For me that’s an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black?”
-- Spike Lee -
“It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work...”
-- Spike Lee -
“A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Since the days of slavery, if you were a good singer or dancer, it was your job to perform for the master after dinner.”
-- Spike Lee -
“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.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Music is, for me, a great tool of a filmmaker, the same way cinematography, the acting, editing, post-production, the costumes are. You know, to help you tell a story.”
-- Spike Lee -
“Our greatness, our talent has never been the question. It's been a matter of grappling for control over what we do.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.”
-- Spike Lee -
“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.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I collect names for characters. Names are valuable; they can be your first source of insight into a character.”
-- Spike Lee -
“I'm very careful about how I portray violence in my films. I do believe that violence, especially violent video games, are not a good thing for young kids.”
-- Spike Lee
