Courtney A. Kemp

“It was not something that ever occurred to me, to be able to be in TV. I was very lucky.”

“My experience as a black woman in the industry is simply that often I was the only one in the room. Often I would be the only woman and the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several women but the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several people of color, but the only woman.”

“Around me, there's always music playing. It just calms me down; it soothes me. It helps me write. It helps me with my mood.”

“I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.”

“I really do love male characters, in some ways, for the fact that they get surprised when they're vulnerable. Women are more surprised by their strength.”

“There are so many different things that create an alchemy of success. Just like there are so many different things that create an alchemy of a failure.”

“I'm seeing more and more people of color do what I do as showrunners, and that's so great. I would love to get to the point where we don't have to talk about it anymore.”

“I love Pusha T and The Clipse.”

“Great power is setting a goal, working hard for it, and achieving it in exactly the way you expected with no consequences and no remainders after the long division is done. But does that happen to anyone? The unexpected always hitches a ride along with everything you planned.”

“In 2011, when my father passed away - I had my daughter first; I had her on January 24, and I had a seizure during the delivery. I lived through that, and five weeks later, my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and I lived through that. And then my daughter had surgery, and I lived through that.”

“The impetus for 'Power' was me writing about my dad, who was an advertising executive and very interested in image. He thought that perception was reality and what people thought of you was what was real about you.”

“Show-running is a very difficult job that includes so many responsibilities; I'm working with the actors, working with directors, writing, making decisions like, 'What fabric is that sofa gonna be?'”

“The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family.”

“I always ask the actors, 'What have you never done before?'”

“It's ridiculous that we let broadcast and cable shows compete against each other at the Emmys. They are not the same animal.”

“The revolution is that we can be anything. We don't have to be one thing or the other. The idea that it is my responsibility to represent only good black people... I mean, what are you talking about? That's not a character - that's a polemic.”

“The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character.”

“I think it's really cool that someone could have ovaries and the presidency. Growing up, I thought I could never be president because I was black and female. Now I know that's wrong. Within my own lifetime - that's different. Within my lifetime, interracial couples are more common. Within my own lifetime, biracial folks are able to claim that.”

“I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice.”

“The Shawshank Redemption' isn't a movie about a black guy and a white guy who become friends - it's a movie about freedom. At the end, the cathartic experience of seeing our own emotions reflected back to us, that's the purpose of storytelling.”