101 Quotes by Boots Riley

"I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed."

"The crux of our power isn't only in our voice. It is in our economic function in society."

"One time, someone came up to me and said, 'I know so-and-so. They're a professor at Harvard. They're a big fan of your work.' But that doesn't impress me more than any other people feeling that way."

"That existential crisis is something you rarely see portrayed by black characters; the idea that people think about their own existence and that they have hopes and dreams is taken away from people of color in their representation."

"I've always been about, how do I get my ideas out to the most people?"

"I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case."

"Making movies seemed so impossible as far as getting my ideas funded."

"The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world."

"If you tell a story that's only allegory, then it doesn't help you at all. If it doesn't bring some emotional charge, then it's just talking about something."

"The point is, is that when you elect a politician, it has nothing to do with their personality. Politicians perform a function, a role in government. And the role of city government is not one that serves the people, unless the people make them do what the people want."