Raoul Peck Quotes

I started to read James Baldwin very early on in my life. At a time, as a young adult in the Sixties, when there were not that many authors in whom I could recognize myself, he was an important guide and mentor to me as he was to many others. He helped me understand who I was and decipher the world around me. He gave me the words to defend myself and the argumentative rhetoric to master discussions with others.

James Baldwin is probably, for me and for many other people, one of the most extraordinary authors in this country, black or white. And he is somebody who changed my life.

Billy Gunn, Bill DeMott, and Dusty Rhodes all helped me find myself and how to express it to people so they understand.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

I'm a big James Baldwin fan.

Getting to know where we come from is a really profound way of getting to look at who we are.

It was a big thing for me to read black writers. 'Fences,' by August Wilson. James Baldwin's 'Amen Corner.' 'The Fire Next Time.' 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' of course.

My college experience was like everyone else's. I learned a lot. I gained a new perspective on the world and on people that I'm so thankful and appreciative for.

I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage - very important things to me - and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me.

I know what it's like to not know where you're going or how to get there. I know what it's like to have no one around you who can teach you how to be what you hope to become.

I have so many mentors. I'm really lucky to be surrounded by incredible mentors, whether it be Solange Knowles or Gloria Steinem or Ava DuVernay, there are so many awesome people in my life, and so I'm lucky for them to kind of have fostered my identity as I grow into myself.

You wait a lifetime to meet someone who understands you, accepts you as you are. At the end, you find that someone, all along, has been you.

Vision is knowing who you are, where you're going, and what will guide your journey.

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

Once you know who you are and to whom you are linked, you will know what to do

Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions…..Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live-but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.

We read books to find out who we are.

I didn't truly understand the depth of my roots until I was old enough to wonder and care.

My father is a marvelous mentor, and if you're going to have a mentor, the ones that work best let you make your own mistakes. You're ready to do your own thing and just at that moment of being unbridled, if somebody's trying to manage you too tightly, it's going to be tough - particularly if that person's got the same last name.

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

You get more insight as you get older, on everything. I kind of woke up one morning and was like, 'Oh I see what's happening, I get everything'. I woke up and was like, 'I get it, I'm a product'.

I came to feel as protective of Elijah as Sam does of Frodo .. In turn, Elijah helped me discover a lot about myself and I literally might not have survived the journey had this young prince of an actor not taken me under his wing.

By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves.

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ...Stories tell us who we are. What we’re capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what’s important.

If people do not know where they have been and what they have been they don't know what they are. They don't know where they going to have to go or where they still have to be.