Quotes from 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.

As a writer of fiction, you don't ever want to limit the characters you create to the life you've lived. That's insanity to me.

There's a difference between talent and skill. You might have writing talent, but skill is learned. You have to practice. I remain teachable. I was sure that I didn't know everything. People who work with me will tell you I don't think I know everything. I watch people sink around me thinking that they knew everything.

I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying.

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.

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.

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.

My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently.

In college, I didn't know whether to hang out with the black kids or the white kids, and then I found the theatre kids, and I was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.' We were all weird and listening to Morrissey and wearing Doc Martens so that was my tribe.

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.

Show-running is a very difficult job that includes so many responsibilities; I'm working with the actors, working with directors, writing, making decisions like, 'What fabric is that sofa gonna be?'

Obviously I'm not from 50's background - I'm from Westport, Connecticut, which is as far away from his background as you can get, right? Growing up in Westport, for a long time I was the only black person living there for miles.

There's always going to be a part of me that wants an Emmy. Truthfully, I'm probably more motivated by people being entertained. I'm more motivated by people being like, 'Oh snap! Did you see that?'

If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other.

Around me, there's always music playing. It just calms me down; it soothes me. It helps me write. It helps me with my mood.

I'm seeing more and more people of color do what I do as showrunners, and that's so great. I would love to get to the point where we don't have to talk about it anymore.

'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.

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.

I am a black woman, and I'm proud of that, but as a showrunner, I want to think about what makes me unique beyond my race.

When people watch 'Power' and they find out the showrunner is black, it's not surprising. What is surprising is that I am a woman and my background is not particularly urban.

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.

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.

It was not something that ever occurred to me, to be able to be in TV. I was very lucky.

My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing.