John Ridley Quotes
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Much as banks don't care where your money's coming from, the Electoral College is all 'don't ask, don't care' when it comes to votes.
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I don't know when I made that active decision to be a writer or to try to write, but I know I always liked storytelling.
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I understand politicos gotta make bank. But cloistering with the Hollywood elite is not how you prove you're a man of the people.
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When entertainment works the best, you're creating an apparatus to convey emotions.
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I never wanted to show up and just say, "Okay, what are we doing today? Let's wing it!"
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Gay marriage will be universally accepted in time. But if I may be so bold as to say to gays and lesbians, don't wait for that time to arrive. Just as my father and his generation did not 'wait' for their civil rights, nor should you. The toothpaste ain't going back in the tube. The tide has turned.
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We all hope that the police and prosecutors are objective. That's their job, but sometimes it's not true.
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As a writer, as a storyteller, you have to have your emotions close, and the older I've gotten, the less I've worried about not displaying emotions.
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With fear of stating the obvious: Freedom belongs to 'We the People,' not 'They the Politicians.'
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I've no desire to start a movement, to be the first name on an open petition, or to be the poster child for disgruntled writers.
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My kids will find me walking around the house talking to myself and think I'm going crazy. I like to read the scripts out loud and really get the rhythm for the dialogue.
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I'm sorry, but chick fights are sexy. If you don't think so, you're either an uptight woman or a lying man.
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For every horrific event, something beautiful happens.
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Bigots are actually funny to me in the way that people who still wear parachute pants give me a chuckle.
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I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.
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At an early age, I knew there were a lot of things I couldn't do. My father was a doctor, and my mother was a teacher. I knew I wasn't good in numbers, and I knew I wouldn't work well in overly structured environments.
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Barack Obama is the New Generation and the hot light of a dawn that goes way beyond clever talk of morning in America.
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I've written films that are violent. I'm not big on sitting and watching violence.
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Even I haven't downed enough L.A. Kool-Aid to believe that somehow Hollywood movies are an overt instrument of morality.
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For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them.
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I want to explore different topics and present them in slightly different ways.
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You can treat faith as part of people's it's lives.
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It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement .
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Depending on which side you're on, maybe the police are too objective and need to be a bit more subjective.
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Facts tend to take the punch out of a good hate rant and are therefore left best unsaid.
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Quite simply, quite plainly, just by virtue of his being, Barack Obama is America. The first true American to lead our nation.
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I can tell you from personal experience it gets a little tiring having to make the rounds on cable shows to explain 'what's up with black folks.'
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We see films all the time, whether they have access to all kinds of intellectual property or artifacts, and the one thing that they don't get is story. So I think whether you're talking about a biopic or an action film or a science-fiction film that has all the CGI in the world, if you're not trying to connect with an audience, it doesn't really matter.
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There is not a country on earth whose people don't deserve to be free and safe.
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There's something very special about knowing what you want to do and knowing the story you want to tell, but finding it together.
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