Melvin Van Peebles

“I do what I want to do.”

“When I was a kid, from 10 years old, I worked every day for my dad, huh? Never played basketball. I never played tennis - never did. We worked so that we could eat.”

“Before me, music soundtracks were sort of afterthoughts.”

“You've got to really check on what you're doing: check and recheck it seven other times to be prepared. Sometimes, people get carried away with the artistic-ness of the endeavor and don't quite have their game face on when the time comes. It's always a pretty costly mistake.”

“I intend to stay dangerous.”

“I work from a subjective palette.”

“In trying to cross over to the mainstream, some people stopped writing what they witnessed.”

“Many times, I get young people asking, 'What do you think about black movies?' And I say, 'What are you talking about? You mean Hollywood movies that have black people in them?' It's gone back to that, and that's not the same thing as a black movie.”

“Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks.”

“I didn't even know I had a legacy.”

“When I got to Paris, they welcomed me and showed my films. It was August of 1960, and I didn't have a penny in my pocket. But they had done something very dangerous: They had given me encouragement.”

“My life and career is defined by the constant pursuit of new forms of culture and self-expression.”

“Somebody once asked me, 'Melvin, how'd you get to the top?' It was simple. Nobody would let me in at the bottom.”

“After 'Don't Play Us Cheap,' I got very busy with theater and Wall Street.”

“My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff.”

“If I was just a creator, I would still be back in the Lincoln annex in the Post Office.”

“Don't ask me something if you don't want to know. Because I will tell you.”

“There's something on Wall Street called PIG - panic, ignorance, and greed. Those are the big sins. I'm not greedy, I knew I was ignorant, and I didn't panic.”

“Scars are the price you pay for success.”

“The artistic world is one of high nuance.”