Great Quotes
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I always like to write myself into a corner. I think the best stuff comes from only having a few ways out.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
If you wanna be your own boss, you gotta work your way up - have the skills.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
Writers are, for the most part, crazy people. We're like Hephaestus of the forge. We're gnarled. We're curled over. We walk with a limp.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I called my show 'Power' because, for me, the whole series is about the way my main character, Ghost, is power-less over his circumstances, even though he has almost endless access to money and guns.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
We use the word 'urban' to mean black or Latino, but that's not what the word means. It actually means 'from the city.' I'm not from the city. I'm from the suburbs of Connecticut. I grew up with mostly all white people.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I'm from an upper-middle class background. But because there was no one of my race where I grew up, I was very isolated. I felt different from everybody else.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
My dad was very, very invested in image. He felt that as a black person, the thing you could control was how did you look, how did you dress, how did you sound, how did you smell, how did you act. All of that stuff that you could control would absolutely have a strong impact on your access.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When you pretend to be an authority on everything, it forces your subordinates to defer to your opinion - which may not be the most informed in the room. If you have humility concerning the gaps in your experience or ability, it allows others to shine.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I am tired of people using 'diverse' to mean 'of color.' That's not what that word means. 'Diversity' means people of all different races, all together - like a New York City subway.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
'Power' is not a black show. It's not a white show. It's a New York show.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
'Power' would never have gotten on the air if the folks at Starz weren't saying to themselves, 'This is an underserved audience.' It was a financial decision, not a benevolent decision based on a need to change the industry.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
People are realizing that there is a financial consequence to not opening doors. It doesn't mean that they are any more inclusive in their hearts - it means they're more inclusive in their wallets.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
50 and I are extremely close, so all that social media drama? It's just for the show.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
What I'm about to say won't be popular, but it's true: If being a television showrunner is the job you want, and you are a woman, I would not suggest you have children. The reality is that you just cannot do both well.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
There's this idea that you can have it all, but in my opinion, you can't - not if you're a perfectionist.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I first became a showrunner at 36 years old. I had no experience doing this job, which is as complicated and multi-faceted as anything I'd ever tried.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
If everyone knows the role they play, and they do their job - executing it well and with enthusiasm - it comes together successfully every time.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
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.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
Humans are powerless, and even in our exercise of free will, either the Universe is gonna get down with your plan, or it isn't.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When it comes to power as it functions between humans, it all comes down to desire. If you know what someone wants, you can control them. It is as simple as that. And the reverse is also true: If you have control over your own desires, no one will ever own you. As humans, we are plagued with desire - it consumes us, it fuels us, it destroys us.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When I first arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004 to try to break into television, I couldn't believe how segregated it was - how many neighborhoods were nearly all-white or all-black or -Asian or -Latino.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When we started on 'Power,' I was committed to respecting the differences among Spanish dialects: Dominican, Nuyorican, Mexican, etc. I wanted the language our characters spoke to be as specific as possible, to reflect New York as it is.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
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.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
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.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
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.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
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.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
50 Cent and I really started to bond over our love for music. The first conversations we had were about Curtis Mayfield.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
The show runner's the boss until the network shows up. And then they're the boss, because it's their money.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I really try to plot in a fearless fashion. I try not to care about not knowing the answer before I get there; I just jump in first and see what happens.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When I'm at work, I want to be with my daughter, and when I'm with my daughter, I probably should be working, and it just is what it is.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
Ultimately, at the end of the day, taking a chance on 'Power' is taking a chance on me.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
When I was a little girl, my imagination was what helped me deal with some sort of negative elements in my childhood.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp
I worked at 'Mademoiselle,' and then it shut, and I worked at 'GQ' for three years, during which I was freelancing. I wrote for 'Vibe.' I did music reviews. I wrote for 'Time Out.' I was desperate to get into 'Entertainment Weekly' or 'New York Magazine.' Like, desperate.
Quote by -Courtney A. Kemp