The Shawshank Redemption' isn't a movie about a black guy and a white guy who become friends - it's a movie about freedom. At the end, the cathartic experience of seeing our own emotions reflected back to us, that's the purpose of storytelling.

When you write a show, every character is you to some extent.

I really do love male characters, in some ways, for the fact that they get surprised when they're vulnerable. Women are more surprised by their strength.

In 2011, when my father passed away - I had my daughter first; I had her on January 24, and I had a seizure during the delivery. I lived through that, and five weeks later, my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and I lived through that. And then my daughter had surgery, and I lived through that.

The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character.

The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family.

50 Cent and I really started to bond over our love for music. The first conversations we had were about Curtis Mayfield.

The show runner's the boss until the network shows up. And then they're the boss, because it's their money.

I really try to plot in a fearless fashion. I try not to care about not knowing the answer before I get there; I just jump in first and see what happens.

When I'm at work, I want to be with my daughter, and when I'm with my daughter, I probably should be working, and it just is what it is.

I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.

I love 'Archer.' That's one of the best-written shows out there.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, taking a chance on 'Power' is taking a chance on me.

There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true.

When I was a little girl, my imagination was what helped me deal with some sort of negative elements in my childhood.

I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up.

I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism.

I worked at 'Mademoiselle,' and then it shut, and I worked at 'GQ' for three years, during which I was freelancing. I wrote for 'Vibe.' I did music reviews. I wrote for 'Time Out.' I was desperate to get into 'Entertainment Weekly' or 'New York Magazine.' Like, desperate.

As a woman, I don't feel like I have a responsibility to create better female characters. I feel like I have a responsibility to create good characters. Because the truth is, those kinds of things ghettoize us even more as writers.

I say a prayer several times a day about what I can control and what I can't control.

Around me, there's always music playing. It just calms me down; it soothes me. It helps me write. It helps me with my mood.

Wherever I go, stuff accumulates.

The impetus for 'Power' was me writing about my dad, who was an advertising executive and very interested in image. He thought that perception was reality and what people thought of you was what was real about you.

I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying.

I don't write scenes where one person is right and one person is wrong. It's very much by design that everyone has a point of view that you as an audience member can understand.

I think as long as I can tell you a story about people that you understand, it doesn't matter if you don't like what they do; you understand why they did it.

I think women judge other women more harshly, always, which is a shame.

As a writer of fiction, you don't ever want to limit the characters you create to the life you've lived. That's insanity to me.

I don't want to be seen in a way where all I can do is what people expect of me.

Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff.

Being a showrunner is doing a bit of everything. It's not just writing. It's also management: managing actors, managing producers, managing a crew, being kind to people, being a good boss, observing deadlines.

I'm seeing more and more people of color do what I do as showrunners, and that's so great. I would love to get to the point where we don't have to talk about it anymore.

I think it's really cool that someone could have ovaries and the presidency. Growing up, I thought I could never be president because I was black and female. Now I know that's wrong. Within my own lifetime - that's different. Within my lifetime, interracial couples are more common. Within my own lifetime, biracial folks are able to claim that.

I want to be a strong voice, period.

If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other.

If I weren't a showrunner, I'd be a much more accomplished mother; if I were not a mother, I would be a much more accomplished showrunner. I have to be okay with getting a B in both.

I am a black woman, and I'm proud of that, but as a showrunner, I want to think about what makes me unique beyond my race.

I always wanted to make a show that had everything I wanted to watch, as opposed to just one or two things.

My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently.

In college, I didn't know whether to hang out with the black kids or the white kids, and then I found the theatre kids, and I was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.' We were all weird and listening to Morrissey and wearing Doc Martens so that was my tribe.

I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice.

When I was pitching 'Power,' I had an executive say, 'Well, I already have a black show.' He said that right to my face.

I am not going to say that only people of color can write people of color, because that means only white people can write white people, and that's not OK.

Every writer should be able to write anything if you do the research and you're sensitive enough to ask the questions.

The story always leads you where it's supposed to go.

I always ask the actors, 'What have you never done before?'

It's ridiculous that we let broadcast and cable shows compete against each other at the Emmys. They are not the same animal.

I love Pusha T and The Clipse.

There's hip-hop music in 'Power,' but the show is not about the hip-hop industry.

There's always going to be a part of me that wants an Emmy. Truthfully, I'm probably more motivated by people being entertained. I'm more motivated by people being like, 'Oh snap! Did you see that?'