My personal history, along with the history of many black people in this country, is rife with trauma born out of anti-black policies aided and facilitated by presidents and their administrations.

With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn't just going to live online. We were like, 'We're creating this thing and then it's also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations.' It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.

I think publicly declaring that mistakes are a part of how we grow and how we heal is absolutely necessary.

I've been in movement work since I was 16 years old. Black Lives Matter becomes an important part of the story, but it's not the only part of the story.

#BlackLivesMatter was born online but now lives in street actions, in conversations in our homes, and in the dignity swelling in our hearts. That is the power of the open Internet, and it is why we must do everything we can to protect black voices. Our lives depend on it.

The unfortunate reality is the alt-right has captured white people's imagination.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily policed. I witnessed my brothers and my siblings continuously stopped and frisked by law enforcement. I remember my home being raided. And one of my questions as a child was, why? Why us? Black Lives Matter offers answers to the why.

I think our work as movement leaders isn't just about our own visibility but rather how do we make the whole visible. How do we not just fight for our individual selves but fight for everybody?

We need to fight for a new human rights movement that recognizes and values black life.

I am part of a legacy of queer black women who have fought for the freedom of black people across the globe.

We should be developing spaces and places that are thinking about how we care for the group vs. asking the individual to take care of themselves.

We have to look at queerness as a means towards challenging normativity.

It was white people who got Trump into office.

I have never felt the grips of patriarchy and its need to erase black women and our labor... so strongly until the creation of Black Lives Matter.

Every community has crime and violence; it's a part of being human. This idea that black communities are more violent than others is just false. But black folks fight the hardest for our communities. Before governments do, before other people do, we're the first ones to show up. We are the first ones to fight for our lives.

Black Lives Matter is one iteration of a much larger struggle to fight for black people's freedom.

Colin Kaepernick is one of the leaders in the movement for black lives. His role as an athlete and activist is not only motivating but inspiring.

It's not easy to be a hero. You do it because of what you believe, not because of what other people deserve.

I have a real pet peeve for women who play damaged characters but don't look damaged.

My father was a fighter pilot, so I moved around the world when I was young. Then I ended up in Kansas. I'd just sort of gravitated toward the arts, and I had always loved music and really loved theater even though I didn't want to act.

I love a great myth. I love a superhero origin story.

When I made 'Monster,' I didn't think about it being about a woman. I didn't think about that she was a lesbian. I was telling a story about a specific person who was tragic and looking for love in the world, and the more I could make her you, the more of a victory.

Hollywood can't stand heroes who aren't sympathetic.

De Niro didn't gain all that weight to play Jake La Motta just to prove he could get fat - every single one of those transformative things is grounded in the character.

As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together.

Just look at Gal Gadot when she smiles or when she meets somebody and shakes their hand. That is the embodiment of Wonder Woman. She is so beautiful and powerful, but kind and generous and thoughtful. She's just an amazing person.

I never want to set a belief that a woman has to direct a woman's film, meaning she can't direct a man's film. If only films can be directed by people who are exactly the same as that, it's only gonna limit all of the women more.

There's Batman, there's Superman, there's Wonder Woman. She's the full-blown real deal.

I know that I'm carrying a bit of a weight on my shoulders of what I do represents more than just myself as a director. I wish that wasn't true, but it is. It makes me think about doing work that I believe in and that I believe I can do well, probably even a hair more than I would otherwise.

There was a very difficult time when a female hero was a man in a woman's body. 'Hunger Games' really changed that: a woman leading a non-woman's film in the action genre. I think 'Wonder Woman' does that on a very big scale.

I'd spent summers growing up in Mississippi, so I had an idea of what the South is like.

I have a long love of superhero films, and I'd been saying over and over again to my agents at CAA that I'd like to do one.

I grew up very inspired by 'Superman One' and by kind of the promise of the genre of what a superhero origin story can do.

My father wanted to be a hero. He went to the Air Force Academy, was valedictorian, and then he found himself strafing villagers in Vietnam in a war he didn't want to be in and didn't understand. He was extremely conflicted about the line where he went from being the good guy to possibly being the bad guy.

I have more information than anybody's ever had about this case. I have 7,000 letters from Aileen Wuornos and all the letters between her and her girlfriend.

I always say that 'Star Wars' had a huge effect on me, too, but what 'Star Wars' did for some people, 'Superman' did for me.

When I'm on a movie, I'm unavailable every day for a year and a half. You can't do that with a little baby. Somebody might be able to do it, but not me.

New kinds of heroics need to be celebrated - like love, thoughtfulness, forgiveness, diplomacy - or we're not going to get there.

Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.

If a film is based on a true story and you don't use anyone's name, you can do what you like.

What I never want to do is start phoning it in and making things just to show that I can keep my foot in the door and do big movies.

It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.

I'm excited to see her power really soar and us have a great time having a great Wonder Woman in our world.

Hollywood is driven by beautiful faces. Always has been.

At the end of the day, making 'Monster' was unbelievably hard, as making any movie is. And the only thing that made it worth it is not those awards and all those kind of things that I can barely remember because I was so overwhelmed. It was really that night in the editing room, that day on set. It was those things.

I was aware that I was the first person of all time getting to direct a Wonder Woman film, and that was taken very seriously.

It was harder, I think, to get attention for the films that I wanted to do than I expected it to be.

It's rare that a character film is easy to fund.

I think that, for whatever reason, we've gotten to a place where, particularly in Hollywood, things have to be very pat. Like 'I'm a good guy. I'm a bad guy.'

My fantasy is that I could wake up looking amazing, that I could be strong and stop the bully, but that everybody would love me, too. I think that's intrinsic to fantasy - fantasy is fantasy.