Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
50 Cent is a brilliant marketer.
Wherever I go, stuff accumulates.
The story always leads you where it's supposed to go.
I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid.
You don't keep your job if you don't make a great show.
When you write a show, every character is you to some extent.
Great partnerships thrive because the people need each other.
I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up.
I think women judge other women more harshly, always, which is a shame.
If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other.
If you wanna be your own boss, you gotta work your way up - have the skills.
Not many people get to create a television show that actually makes it on the air.
It was not something that ever occurred to me, to be able to be in TV. I was very lucky.
I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.
I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism.
There's this idea that you can have it all, but in my opinion, you can't - not if you're a perfectionist.
I always like to write myself into a corner. I think the best stuff comes from only having a few ways out.
My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing.
I always wanted to make a show that had everything I wanted to watch, as opposed to just one or two things.
The show runner's the boss until the network shows up. And then they're the boss, because it's their money.
When I was a little girl, my imagination was what helped me deal with some sort of negative elements in my childhood.
Every writer should be able to write anything if you do the research and you're sensitive enough to ask the questions.
When I was pitching 'Power,' I had an executive say, 'Well, I already have a black show.' He said that right to my face.
50 Cent and I really started to bond over our love for music. The first conversations we had were about Curtis Mayfield.
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.
It's ridiculous that we let broadcast and cable shows compete against each other at the Emmys. They are not the same animal.
Humans are powerless, and even in our exercise of free will, either the Universe is gonna get down with your plan, or it isn't.
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.
New York is the center of the world. I grew up in Connecticut, outside of the city, and my father commuted to the city for work.
Comedians are on the road so much that when they're just getting to act and sit in one place, they're really grateful and just ready.
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.
I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice.
If everyone knows the role they play, and they do their job - executing it well and with enthusiasm - it comes together successfully every time.
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.
There are so many different things that create an alchemy of success. Just like there are so many different things that create an alchemy of a failure.
I really try to plot in a fearless fashion. I try not to care about not knowing the answer before I get there; I just jump in first and see what happens.
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.
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.
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.
I don't write scenes where one person is right and one person is wrong. It's very much by design that everyone has a point of view that you as an audience member can understand.
I am tired of people using 'diverse' to mean 'of color.' That's not what that word means. 'Diversity' means people of all different races, all together - like a New York City subway.
The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character.
I'd say it's far more challenging to be female and be a showrunner. People are not surprised to see a black person running this show, but the female aspect is the thing that I get asked about.
People are realizing that there is a financial consequence to not opening doors. It doesn't mean that they are any more inclusive in their hearts - it means they're more inclusive in their wallets.
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?'
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?'
I called my show 'Power' because, for me, the whole series is about the way my main character, Ghost, is power-less over his circumstances, even though he has almost endless access to money and guns.
Being a showrunner is doing a bit of everything. It's not just writing. It's also management: managing actors, managing producers, managing a crew, being kind to people, being a good boss, observing deadlines.
Any underrepresented audience loves to see themselves on TV, but what's more important is that we're writing about universal themes - good versus evil, can you change yourself? These themes resonate for everyone.
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.