101 Quotes by Dee Rees

Writing is really freeing because it’s the only part of the process where it’s just you and the characters and you are by yourself in a room and you can just hash it out. There are no limitations.

I love the freedom of writing and then I love the realization of directing. I can’t favor one or the other. I enjoy both parts of the process.

I love directing because you get to see your film come to life. You get to work with the actors. There’s something magical about each piece of it.

I'm not a writer that writes every day. I just kind of have ideas. I jot them down when I have them, and when I have enough, I just start. And for me, I start more around noon, and I'm all about feeling. Once there's a theme, I can't not write.

When I first started going out to lesbian clubs, I felt a very binary recreation of hetero culture. There are butches and femmes, and I felt like I was neither of those things. I'm in a turtleneck and jeans and just learning to be comfortable in that space. I realized I don't have to be a certain way.

Art makes you see people as individual, unique human beings. Art, in that way, allows us to see each other in particulate, as opposed to in aggregate.

A producer has to want you. And if the producer trusts you and asks for your vision, it frees you up so much, not having to explain or fight for every decision. You're allowed to create.

We have to create a range, and we have to let there be possibilities. And basically, by showing there are different types of people, you write down the monolith. You stop having to represent for all black people when you allow there to be different types represented.

There's a lot of power in saying no to big things that you don't want to do in order to say yes to the kind of things that really inspire you.