A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there.
Spike Lee

A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.
Spike Lee

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.
Spike Lee

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.
Spike Lee

Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.
Spike Lee

Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest.
Spike Lee

Everything I do is always scrutinised. But that's all I'll say about that.
Spike Lee

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.
Spike Lee

I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.
Spike Lee

I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.
Spike Lee


I get offered to do stuff where the money's nice but it's not something I want to do - I get offered a lot of commercials too.
Spike Lee

I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.
Spike Lee

I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I'm a New York filmmaker.
Spike Lee

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.
Spike Lee

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.
Spike Lee

I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive.
Spike Lee

I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.
Spike Lee

I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.
Spike Lee

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.
Spike Lee

If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.
Spike Lee