Quotes from Ava DuVernay

I love to see people just being regal in their own skin; it's just when they know who they are.

I think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.

I'd be absolutely happy to go back and make a smaller picture. I never want my choices to be dictated by budget. That's one of the reasons why I take so much pride in being able to make films for $2 and a paper clip - because I can always get my hands on $2 and a paper clip. I never have to ask for permission for that.

I love community, I love to be around other people. I love to be around other people when everyone's feeling good and doing their best. Not to just be the only one in the room that's shining.

If your dream is only about you, it's too small.

Any film that you see that has any progressive spirits that is made by any people of color or a woman is a triumph in and of itself. Whether you agree with it or not. Something that comes with some point of view and some personal perspective from a woman or a person of color is a unicorn.

It's very nourishing and collaborative - kind of the true essence of what one would want an artistic collaboration to be [the collaboration with Oprah Winfrey].

My mother is from Compton, California, but my father is from Hayneville, Alabama, and that's less than 20 miles from Selma.

There can be a progression to the dream; there can be steps to it. When you dissect any successful person's story, it's really rare that it was all or nothing. It's steps, and I just try to remind myself of that in terms of the things that I want; it's like, everything is a step, leading you to where you need to go.

Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.

For a film to be made is a small miracle. And sometimes it's a large one.

Film is a mirror. I want to see more filmmakers. We all want to see ourselves.

Today, when you look at social media, you see that the narrative can be overtaken by people just from Twitter and Instagram. I know when Ferguson was going down those first few nights, I was watching feeds on the ground on Twitter, not CNN.

I am honored to be one of this year's Urbanworld ambassadors for the festival's 20th anniversary, joining my friend David Oyelowo. I have always had a special relationship with Urbanworld, back to my days as a festival publicist to previewing my earlier films and now as an ambassador.

I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.

I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

There's a big difference between the independent film world and the Hollywood film world, and I don't know that I understood that until I got into certain rooms, and people's faces go blank when you talk about Sundance.

I've been to Sundance eight times as a publicist and thought I was very prepared. I mean, who could've been more prepared for me? A publicist who's been there eight times. Getting there as a filmmaker was a completely surreal, different, unexpected experience.

In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.

Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We've been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it's true for women, and I think it's true for people of color. It's historic, and it's unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed.

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

Oh, Diane Nash deserves her own film. Diane Nash is a freedom fighter who is still alive and kicking. She was one of the leaders of the desegregation of Nashville, basically. She was a student at Fisk University who was one of the founding members of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Hollywood needs more women directors, and Mama Ava needs a carafe and a half of that sweet vino divino.

Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We've been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. But that time has passed.