101 Quotes by Dee Rees

For me, books were my source of affirmation. Alice Walker, Audrey Lord - it was these authors who wrote about their experiences. It was this weird thing where I was censored in terms of what I could watch but not in terms of what I could read.

To have a simultaneous global audience as an artist is more than you could ever hope for.

Filmmaking was the way I could write characters and not have to give them up to anybody.

I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it.

I was never physically abused, but when I came out to my parents late in life, when I was 27, they definitely had an intervention.

I had originally written 'Pariah' as a feature, and we shot the first act as a short film, and then we used the short as a marketing tool to fundraise for the feature.

I definitely felt the desire to, like - I definitely knew there was an elsewhere. I definitely knew that, like, if I were going to be free, I needed to be away from, kind of, like, Nashville and kind of get out of the South and get out of the country.

Our country is pathologically violent.

I think art breaks down otherness.