Quotes by John Ridley

About John Ridley:

John Ridley IV is an American screenwriter, film director, novelist, television showrunner and writer known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award in 2013 for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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As an individual, and I have to say as a person of color, the thing about being an 'other' in America is I really feel like you're bilingual. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin, but even when I'm in New York and I'm working for MSNBC or CNN, you're u...

John Ridley

I don't think I'm alarmist. I'm more disappointed by the euphemisms in some instances than outright bigotry. Now, to me, you walk around with a Klan hat on or you've got a swastika on you arm, you just look like a dope, you know what I mean?

John Ridley

I don't know what's hipper: to Facebook or to Twitter. I just know for me, personally, discretion never went out of style.

John Ridley

Why don't we hear more about and from Asians when it comes to race in America? Are Asians the new Invisible Man - there but not there? In some ways, yeah. Blacks and whites are always carping about the metrics of racism. And any conversation about im...

John Ridley

Bad news: Complainers are rewarded for complaining. Indicative of the victim culture in which we live, people have not only come to expect something for nothing, but are then rewarded for how loudly they can ventilate their sense of having been victi...

John Ridley

With comics, you don't have to worry so much about budgetary constraints. In film and television, however fanciful you want to be, someone can come up to you and go, 'Okay, this is going to cost X amount of dollars, and we only have so many days to f...

John Ridley

Oh, happy day when the enemies of ascendancy have got to confess that people of color rock.

John Ridley

Governmental intervention and personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive issues, but they do frame a 'do it ourselves' vs. 'what are you doing for us' debate. For the black community, that's a debate that's been raging at least as far back as...

John Ridley

Reactionary conservatives are smiling through the racial apocalypse. To them, race baiting is a joke, as 'humorist' Rush Limbaugh will tell you when he's calling Mexicans 'stupid.' Or it's a matter of semantics when they claim that Sonia Sotomayor is...

John Ridley

I'm sorry, but chick fights are sexy. If you don't think so, you're either an uptight woman or a lying man.

John Ridley

There are any number of very hard working people in Hollywood who deserve recognition. Mostly its the artisans and crafts persons - the 'below the line' workers - whose only reward is to be pejoratively labeled 'below the line' workers. I say get the...

John Ridley

As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else'...

John Ridley

For every horrific event, something beautiful happens.

John Ridley

Writing a screenplay needs to be more than words on a page - and by the way, I think the words on the page are something you have to try to execute on the highest level you can; I'm not dismissing that by any regard.

John Ridley

Just mention the idea of warrantless wiretaps and expect to get hit up with a congressional investigation. But give somebody an avatar and a URL, and he can't tweet, post or hyperlink enough personal information about himself to as many people as pos...

John Ridley

At the risk of sounding like that old guy in 'Gran Torino' telling those 'young punks' to 'get off my lawn,' it's gotten to the point that whenever I hear somebody talking about Twitter or twittering or tweeting, it just makes my little tummy want to...

John Ridley

Being of color in America by no means amounts to a constant barrage of negativity. However, unlike being white, being of color means one's race is a constant issue.

John Ridley

From the moment we were first dumped in Jamestown and had our teeth checked before getting sold off and later considered three-fifths of a human being, an abundance of 'likability' hasn't been something blacks have had to stockpile. Instead, it's bee...

John Ridley

I've no desire to start a movement, to be the first name on an open petition, or to be the poster child for disgruntled writers.

John Ridley

Certainly as a kid, I grew up with Batman, Superman, whoever - they didn't need to be black for me to relate to them. But when a character like Cyborg came along, I got excited, because he looked a little bit more like me; his experiences were a litt...

John Ridley

In every election cycle that I can recall, there comes a moment - or a few - where charges of elitism and claims of commonness are wielded by presidential candidates like a sword and shield: 'Vote for me 'cause I'm one of you. It's the other guy who'...

John Ridley

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Ridley
  • DescriptionAmerican writer and director
  • Born1965
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionFilm Director; Screenwriter; Novelist; Writer
  • AwardsAcademy Award For Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)