Lee Daniels Quotes

Whatever happens in my life, whether I stand up or I fall down, whatever the case, I'm going to use it in my art. Why? Because I'm an artist and I have to.

It's funny how in that moment I see things clearly. Am I beaten down? Yes. Have I allowed myself to become a victim? Somewhat. Am I afraid? Always. Does some part of me still long to fly away from this place? Absolutely. But I can't leave. Sam and I have built a life for Joy. It isn't perfect, but it's a life. My family's happiness means more to me that starting over again. Page 210

In the past members of my family on both my mother's and father's side have fought in the war, in the first and second World Wars. Unfortunately, they're dead and I wasn't able to speak to them, but that was in our family history too.

It takes a lot of people years to turn a negative into a positive. It takes me, like, an album.

I think I didn't know what I was creating, as much as I knew what I didn't want to do. And I didn't want my mother's life. She was an unhappy, frustrated artist who always dreamed of a life that was never going to be hers.

I just read about John Le Carre, the great spy novelist. He had an absolutely miserable childhood. His mother deserted him when he was young. His father was a playboy and a drunk. He was shifted around to many different homes. He knew he was a writer when he was about nine, but he was dyslexic. So here was a person with an absolutely messed-up childhood and a symptom that prevented him from doing what he wanted to do most. Yet that very symptom was part of the calling. It forced him to go deeper.

The new Galliano will be even bigger and better... I love working, it's my therapy. I can draw until four in the morning every night and not feel tired... I've come face to face with my demons, medicine and alcohol. I have rebuilt myself again.

I think of my father born in this very small, limited situation and then coming out of that. Many people have this story.

I certainly struggled when I was little and didn't have an easy time, so I try to put that stuff in my work.

If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter.

All my life I've been seeing things through the culture. My father, for instance, was the press's bad boy. People really hated him. He was always a big flirt. He was always in trouble - going bankrupt, whatever.

Whenever God means to make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.

I'm 48. For a while after 'The Jerk' (movie) I had a feeling of failure. I was a little scared. First people discover you and they love you. You get big and then you fail. And people are glad that you fail. But I've always come back and I've started to trust myself.

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

While each of us faces enormous challenges every day, it's not the sins we commit that will define us, its how we respond to them.

Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.

My story, or my life or my legacy can hopefully show [fans] that once you’re down, that doesn’t mean you’re down forever. You never let up.

To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

What could you do better for your children and your children's children than to record the story of your life, your triumphs over adversity, your recovery after a fall, your progress when all seemed black, your rejoicing when you had finally achieved? Some of what you write may be humdrum dates and places, but there will also be rich passages that will be quoted by your posterity.

Just because I publish pornography does not mean that I am not concerned about the social ills that all of us are

I have fallen short in my life, but my faith has always brought me home.

I'm still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman.

The ordinary man puts up a struggle against all that is not himself, whereas it is against himself, in a limited but all-essential field, that the artist has to battle.

I am fundamentally happy. Everyone has experiences that makes them cynical, jaded or unhappy - you just have to fight those things off. I have totally emotional days when I cry and get insecure. PMS weirded out, doomed and tragic. I mean, I'm definitely not just a lollipop, happy in the wind girl. I'm human just like everyone else, but I think that it would be tragic to be on your deathbed and think, 'I could've I should've.' That gets me out of bed everyday. I can't even last like an hour in bed in the morning. I have to get out there and live.

We all struggle. I'm not saying any successful woman's life is without struggle. But it doesn't mean it has to be miserable.