Quotes from Lee Daniels

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.

I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender.

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.

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.

When you have a lot of siblings, you always do something to feel special.

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.

I've met Shonda Rhimes a few times, and certainly she's an inspiration for me in television.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'Empire' was a very traumatic experience for me. It was very schizophrenic, and it wasn't what I expected it to be.

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.

With TV, you're in people's houses every night. And you have so much time to tell stories. I don't know why I didn't do it before.

I come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents.

People enjoy making fun of people who are famous they love putting people down.

I love actors, and I'm very protective of them. I trust them. It's a mutual trust.

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.

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.'

I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world.

My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen.

I have twins that I didn't want to have the life that I had. I didn't have a great life growing up.

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.