Ava DuVernay Quotes
My interest as an artist is to illuminate the lives of black folks. I definitely am focused on films that illustrate all that we are and all our nuance and all our complicated beauty and mess, and when you're telling those stories, you gotta have black actors.

Quotes to Explore
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I don't understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting.
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You cannot get PTSD from reading a book or from hearing a story, even repeated stories over and over.
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As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating.
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I was riding my mountain bike in Colorado, and I met a dog who reminded me so much of my very first dog, in the way she interacted with me, looked at me, and wagged her tail, that I rode away convinced I'd just very possibly met the reincarnated version of my long lost friend.
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In 1980, shortly before my 11th birthday, I wrote my first essay in English.
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By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.
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It sounds trite to go after men who are nice but when you've been hurt a lot it becomes appealing.
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There are people that bring artists to me to look at it, and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.
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Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
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What role should religion play in the American public school classroom? My own knee-jerk response would be, 'none whatsoever,' but the Constitution isn't quite so direct on the subject.
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I spent years commuting into London when I was working as a temp, and I hated the monotony of it.
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Actor's life is very long.
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I do two months of strict dieting, so after fight night, I go for whatever my body is craving. It's usually sushi. But after that, I go home to Guadalajara and indulge in a lot of tacos before I have to start getting in shape for another fight.
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I had a passport where I wrote 'artist' under 'occupation' and I remember thinking, 'That's it, it's proved!'
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You don't need to raise taxes on rich people, because they create capitalization and investment. But you need to tax speculation - meaning capital gains.
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The man who practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness - even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent - will be an elevating influence wherever he goes.
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I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world, but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well, and it's an ongoing creative assignment.
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Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.
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Ayurveda is a sister philosophy to yoga. It is the science of life or longevity and it teaches about the power and the cycles of nature, as well as the elements.
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I think it's more important to be fit so that you can be healthy and enjoy activities than it is to have a good body.
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There are a lot of people out there who are just waiting that we fail. They brought up the theory that we're one-hit wonders and they want us to fall flat on our noses, just to prove them right.
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Clearly, a stable, unified and democratic Iraq cannot be achieved militarily by the U.S.
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If I'm extremely bored and I don't have a book with me and I'm being an obnoxious teenager, I'll read 'BuzzFeed' on my phone. But even that just leaves me feeling icky because I think for some reason my comfort zone is to just not really be in the loop about stuff like awards shows or things like that.
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My interest as an artist is to illuminate the lives of black folks. I definitely am focused on films that illustrate all that we are and all our nuance and all our complicated beauty and mess, and when you're telling those stories, you gotta have black actors.