Top 100 Lee Daniels Quotes

#1. 'Push' had a story, 'The Paperboy' story you could just throw up in the air and shoot holes through the book because the story wasn't as strong. But I felt the characters were stronger in 'The Paperboy'; they were vivid.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #8239
#2. While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.'

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #8870
#3. When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #24534
#4. Theater was always in the backdrop. Nursing was a way to pay the bills. I wasn't a nurse; I had a nursing agency.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #37327
#5. I definitely caught the acting bug, but that lasted for about two seconds when I found my way to L.A. and found that my talents were better suited behind the cameras.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #44056
#6. I'm not tough when it comes to people criticizing the people that I protect, and those are the actors. It makes them scared to do it again for another director.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #81547
#7. I want to live in my truth. Tell me you don't like me, and I know it. But when you don't tell me, and you work behind my back, it's a lie, and I don't know how to fight that.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #83533
#8. When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #103084
#9. I believe in life that you know that everything prepares you for the next thing - whether it's a hit, whether it's not a hit, whether it's a ... your failures are your accomplishments because it makes you prepared for whatever it is that you are going to do next.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #103356
#10. I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #160640
#11. I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #180124
#12. In true rock star fashiuon, I had insomina last night and I didn't sleep at all. So all I need is a bottle of Jack Daniels and some groupies, and I'll be just like David Lee Roth.

Chris Jericho

Lee Daniels Quotes #186415
#13. Some of the most provocative TV that I'm inspired by is in the U.K. You guys take it for granted, but in America, we can't do it.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #233692
#14. I think people in the future will come up to me and say, "Everything that you are and everything that you have is because of that butler [film]." Of course, that's Oprah's line from the movie, but I think it will resonate with my legacy with the movie.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #247618
#15. I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #263793
#16. I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #274011
#17. I love black women. I live for them. They are everything to me. I'm obsessed with them. They are sophisticated, resilient and smarter than me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #281848
#18. I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #294299
#19. I look at my movies; I call my movies 'the kid.' It's like I'm giving birth. I'm in the cocoon, you know?

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #311468
#20. I've had all types of beautiful girls tell me that they ugly when they look in the mirror, as if it's someone else's reflection they see.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #313125
#21. My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #321954
#22. My kids tell me to Instagram, so I do that. I have a few thousand followers.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #340007
#23. I drank from colored water fountains and from the white water fountain just to see what it was like when I was a kid. What shocks me is that these kids today don't realize that this happened in many of our lifetimes.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #351003
#24. I embrace the criticism, because ultimately (it means) the masses have seen it [my movie]. I embrace it for my father's story, for my mother's story, for my auntie, for my grandmother, who all got their teeth knocked out so I could be [where I am].

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #372220
#25. I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #393694
#26. Trust is hard to get from actors, and for me to give to actors.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #395552
#27. What attracts me to material are characters that I know - characters that I know people don't know but I know - and bringing them to the screen. Spotlighting voices that have not been heard before on screen.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #405233
#28. The ratings board is completely different when it comes to film versus the television arena.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #426025
#29. I went to school at Radnor High School. And I went to a liberal arts college in St. Louis, Missouri, called Lindenwood College.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #429090
#30. I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #449097
#31. My dream is to make a Superman hero that's gay.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #458435
#32. I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #473539
#33. 'Shadowboxer' was based on my life.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #482816
#34. I went back-to-back from 'Paperboy' to 'Butler,' literally with no break.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #497985
#35. I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #510150
#36. I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #513300
#37. So there we were shooting Jack Daniels into our veins, like what the fuck we can just drink it.

Tommy Lee

Lee Daniels Quotes #517160
#38. My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #530912
#39. I went from off-off Broadway. I would direct plays in Baldwin Hills. Almost Tyler Perry-like, really trying to express myself in that and not really knowing how to, knowing acting in story, but not really knowing how to technically hold a camera.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #533279
#40. I'm still pulled over ... We were nominated for two Oscars for 'Monster's Ball,' and I almost didn't make the Oscars because I got pulled over in Beverly Hills.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #546101
#41. When you have a lot of siblings, you always do something to feel special.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #548982
#42. People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #555168
#43. I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #566011
#44. I came to Hollywood to write and found out I don't have the attention span.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #573077
#45. I grew up hardcore. I learned to be more responsible - and fiscally responsible - you know, I just wanna be a kid again! Do a musical, have tons of time or something.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #596643
#46. I can't do movies where you start thinking "Where's the commercial appeal? How are we going to market this?" It's not that kind of party.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #597826
#47. I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #634502
#48. I wanted to make a black 'Dynasty.'

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #659781
#49. My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #666767
#50. I don't read the reviews, the blogs, or anything else. Instead, I feel the audience when I show the film.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #673759
#51. I think that any actor - any artist, period - would love to work with an artist like Lee Daniels.

Jussie Smollett

Lee Daniels Quotes #676313
#52. My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #707096
#53. Here's the thing: I think the media underestimates the intelligence of the moviegoer. We need to be fulfilled. People want to sit down and think, and I try to make people think.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #723169
#54. Rarely do celebrities and actors speak up for what they believe in.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #732239
#55. I moved on to a nursing agency as a receptionist just to get a job, and ended up managing it, which led to me opening my own - say your mom is sick and needs someone to help her, then you call something like what I had: a home health agency.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #734779
#56. I don't think anyone likes anything of mine. At the end of the day, I love it, but just because I love it ... I happen to love broccoli, not a lot of people like broccoli. I always question if somebody else is going to love my films.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #750354
#57. 'Precious' is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I'm prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against people who are darker than me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #763645
#58. I'm not really vegan. I'm vegan-ish. I have a piece of lamb every now and then.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #765845
#59. Some of my friends don't have a cell phone. Patti LaBelle doesn't have a cell phone.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #774104
#60. In L.A., I was a talent manager for many years. I represented many African-American actors. After a while, I became disheartened over the shortage of roles for African Americans.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #775084
#61. Being the first person to go to college that really related to me from the movie [The Butler] because being black and going to college everyone puts so much hope into you.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #820590
#62. America is fickle. You never know what they're going to go for.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #857195
#63. To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture. We're making a movie. We're making it like we're putting on a play.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #876049
#64. Most actors want the audience to like them, and that leads to bad acting.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #879557
#65. I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #883610
#66. I think the father-son love story is a universal one which transcends color.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #890494
#67. When people don't like the film, I can take a bullet. I don't mind you talking about me, but I'm protective of my actors, because they bared their soul for me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #927418
#68. At 19, I was in the streets making money. I was surviving.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #940157
#69. My philosophy has always been, you don't put your name in front of a movie.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #961643
#70. I have twins that I didn't want to have the life that I had. I didn't have a great life growing up.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #968077
#71. I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1021830
#72. I like to show the grey area in all my characters.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1046912
#73. I'm not Tyler Perry. I'm not Dino De Laurentis. I think it's a bit much to put one's name in front of the film. It makes me uncomfortable.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1079845
#74. The rules are: The only ego is the film, and you have to serve the film.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1087980
#75. I like all my work equally. I look at the projects as children. I look at the experience more than the end result.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1090851
#76. I started casting. I cast music videos, but I kept getting fired from jobs because I was iconoclastic in my ways of casting.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1101890
#77. I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1109019
#78. My mom knew early on that I was gay, and she knew that I had to get out of the ghetto.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1113437
#79. I don't know - I haven't seen any of my movies after I finish them. I leave the editing room; I don't go back.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1113666
#80. Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1115088
#81. There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1128396
#82. I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1204234
#83. Stars make money on real movies. They make big money on real movies. To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1242660
#84. Most of my friends are dead. I watched friends die in my arms at 5, 6, 8. When I grew up, the rest of my friends died of AIDS.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1262212
#85. I come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1268527
#86. That's the gift 'Precious' has given me. You really think you're telling a story about a fat black girl, and only fat black girls will understand it, and then you realize we're all Precious.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1317518
#87. I don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1335375
#88. I'm a filmmaker. I'm always searching for the truth in everything I do. I demand it from my writing partner and my crew, actors, and so hopefully, we're making people think.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1361963
#89. I was always intrigued with European cinema, and hated most American cinema. I didn't like the one, two, three - boom! style, with a neat and tidy ending. That was never my scene.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1393546
#90. My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1407612
#91. I'm always more comfortable and in a good place when I'm with friends because I know they trust me. I'm able to get great performances from people who trust me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1409781
#92. I had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1414033
#93. It's hard for me to accept love. I wish I could lie to you and tell you that it's easy for me, but it's not.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1419530
#94. As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1437444
#95. Putting on a movie is like going to war - for me, at least. It's all about time; time is money, and we don't have it. So it's all about getting to know each other intimately quickly. You are with family members that you like or don't like, but you can't leave them because you're stuck with them.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1452285
#96. I am so used to having two faces. A face that I had for black America and a face for white America. When Obama became president, I lost both faces. Now I only have one face.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1481725
#97. I'm always workin', man. I gotta pay the light bills.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1485973
#98. I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1490634
#99. My partner, Danny Strong, came to me with this idea of telling a story about my life and merging that with music and the hip-hop world. He wrote 'The Butler' and originally wanted to do 'Empire' also as a movie.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1493078
#100. If you really spend time with movies, it's three years of your life from beginning to end. I started out planting the seed with 'Monster's Ball' about independent cinema and raising money and that whole thing as a producer, and then it becomes easier for me.

Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels Quotes #1524711

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