Dee Rees Quotes

I've been wanting to produce for some time because I want to have more creative control over the things that I do and not be victim to the whims of other people's desires.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work.

I didn't want to just be an artist and let someone else have all that control over me. I knew I would have to produce.

Very few artists are as independent as I am mentally, physically, spiritually and technically. I sit in my home studio and record things by myself. I don't need to get anybody's approval or validation.

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do.

I just kind of feel like it's my choice to do what I want to do. And my agent, he's totally with it. He tells me, 'You can turn down any audition you don't want to.'

As an independent artist, you control the means of production, which is the ultimate form of empowerment.

I don't care what the public wants, I'm going to give it what it needs!

You don't have to buy from anyone. You don't have to work at any particular job. You don't have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose.

My desire is to be as independent as I can be, as long as I can be, subject to being effective.

A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.

I enjoy making the decisions.

I want to go out on my terms.

I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.

Up to now I've done everything I've wanted to do the way I wanted to do myself.

I pay all my own bills... I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me.

I've run into certain geniuses of individualism - they are very few and far between - who live their lives completely on their own terms; they are very powerful and have a great amount of happiness. We all should aspire to that.

My primary lesson, however, was that I'm a solo writer, happiest when I'm making all the executive decisions. I've always been willing to rise or fall on my own merits.

I choose not to be at the whim of others. I want to be at my own whim.

I want to be in control of my own destiny.

Acting is a whole boatload of fun, but I prefer to do it on my own terms.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China's Communists.

I lead my life as normal.

I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.