Lee Daniels

I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it.

Rarely do celebrities and actors speak up for what they believe in.

That's the gift 'Precious' has given me. You really think you're telling a story about a fat black girl, and only fat black girls will understand it, and then you realize we're all Precious.

I'm not really vegan. I'm vegan-ish. I have a piece of lamb every now and then.

I love black women. I live for them. They are everything to me. I'm obsessed with them. They are sophisticated, resilient and smarter than me.

While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.'

People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down.

I think the father-son love story is a universal one which transcends color.

It's hard for me to accept love. I wish I could lie to you and tell you that it's easy for me, but it's not.

I don't know whether everybody likes the films that I do. I know that I love them, and I believe the way that I raise my kids that they will love them, and that's what most important to me.

I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual.

I think it's very important that we don't sound like militants. Often what we do is we give a comment, and because it comes across with passion, then we're 'angry black people.'