With 'Pariah,' at the time, I had just come out. I had a coming out experience, and I was writing about it, transposing my experience as an adult: What would it have been like if I had been a teenager in Brooklyn? The funny thing was people thought I was from Brooklyn. I had to be like, 'No, I'm from Nashville.'

Dee Rees

It's a failure of imagination if you can only write what you know - we have to be able to imagine different worlds.

Dee Rees

Before Charlottesville, it might have been easy to dismiss the plot of 'Mudbound' as no longer relevant. Now, I feel like audiences will be more receptive to the material - and to interrogating their personal histories after watching it.

Dee Rees

For me, books were my source of affirmation. Alice Walker, Audrey Lord - it was these authors who wrote about their experiences. It was this weird thing where I was censored in terms of what I could watch but not in terms of what I could read.

Dee Rees

Both grandfathers fought in different wars. My mother's father fought in World War II, and then my father's father fought in Korea. And they're both these country boys, one from rural Tennessee and one from rural Louisiana - and they never went back home.

Dee Rees

With friendship, it's hard sometimes - you don't outgrow your friends, but you do question how people are friends to you in different ways and how it's okay to cultivate other relationships outside of that.

Dee Rees

I grew up listening to Mary J. Blige's music. When I initially met her, it was like, 'Oh, wow. I'm meeting this woman whose music was the soundtrack of my college years.'

Dee Rees

My first job was at Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, my second job was at a pharmaceutical company in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. My third job was at Palmolive. And I realized, three jobs in three years, maybe it wasn't the job. It had to be me.

Dee Rees

When I first started going out to lesbian clubs, I felt a very binary recreation of hetero culture. There are butches and femmes, and I felt like I was neither of those things. I'm in a turtleneck and jeans and just learning to be comfortable in that space. I realized I don't have to be a certain way.

Dee Rees

When I first came to New York, I was surprised by all these out teenagers who were openly on the street being who they were. That intrigued me because I was 27 and still struggling with being myself.

Dee Rees

In an industry that's uncertain and when you're in a lot of situations that are anxiety-causing, to have someone there who has your back unconditionally and cares for you and the material and would give anything to make sure everything is OK, makes you feel so much better. It gives you a sense of security as an artist.

Dee Rees

I like 'Paris is Burning' by Jennie Livington.

Dee Rees

I think Charlottesville was shocking for some, but it wasn't for me or for my family, I mean, because I grew up in 1980s Nashville.

Dee Rees

I grew up in Nashville in a white suburb. We lived next to a Klan member. We didn't see hoods, but my dad knew that guy was a Grand Dragon.

Dee Rees

When I first came out, holidays were hard. I reached a point where I didn't go home anymore. I constructed my own, kind of like, family group around Christmas.

Dee Rees

I thought that marketing was a way to be creative in business but quickly learned all creative stuff happens at the ad agency.

Dee Rees

My dad was a cop, you know, and I grew up three houses down from people who used Confederate flags as curtains.

Dee Rees

For 'Pariah,' people were surprised Kim Wayans was there, but comedians have a dark streak; they're comedians for a reason.

Dee Rees

For me, like, obviously, I want to see myself onscreen.

Dee Rees

People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There's still housing discrimination and wage discrimination.

Dee Rees

There's a line that runs between everyone and their ancestors, and you cannot sever that. Maybe disassociate from those ideas but not how you are connected to them. But, you can realise how you've benefited and change how you raise your kids.

Dee Rees