I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves.

I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that.

Hip-hop isn't dead by any means, but it's not something I define my black identity with.

I've been taught through life experience that, like, I'd better open my mouth and quickly define myself in a new space and with new people because, if I don't, I will be defined.

I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie. I'm not a fan of, okay, 'wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up - we'll figure it out in post.' I hate that.

I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am all those things, so it is frustrating, to a degree, to be limited by other people's perceptions of me, but at the same time, it is true that I am a black guy, and, you know, it's like I'm rooted in but not bound by.

There can't be reverse racism against a group that is not at a disadvantage.

Basically, the system works to my disadvantage for no other reason than that I am a person of color, and I am telling stories about people of color.

The mark of a really great satire is its ability to seem prophetic, and I think that the television culture that film predicted really came true in the age of reality television and is a testament to how great it really is.

Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group.

You watch 'Malcolm X,' and then Netflix recommends 'B.A.P.S.,' and you're like, 'What? Those movies have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but OK.' They don't recommend other historical biopics - it's 'B.A.P.S.' and 'Ghost Dad.'

The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going.

The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism.

I think unless we have an honest conversation about race and identity in this country, we're never going to get anywhere.

I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of that story in a drawing notepad at home.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' - I'd watched and hated it seven times before it provided the first 'religious experience' I'd ever had watching a film. Finally, I was able to pick up on what the film was transmitting almost entirely through dialogue.

I never liked 'Donnie Darko' quite as much as my film school peers.

If you walk out of a movie that's meant to be about race in our country, and you're feeling good and happy, then that movie didn't tell you all of the truth. It's too big of an issue, and it's too complicated for you to feel good. It's something you should feel like you need to talk about.

I tend to be collaborative, and I want to hear other people's ideas. Especially with actors, I want them to feel like they can breathe life into their characters.

I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition.

I think great movies do promote conversation, great movies are honest, and great movies are sometimes polarizing.

I'm a lover of film and storytelling. I believe that I was put on earth to tell stories, and I'm not interested in telling the same stories over and over and over again.

I was blessed enough to know that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a kid, the first time I realized that that was something people did for a living.

I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that.