Inclusive Narrative Quotes

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.

The thing about 'Star Wars' is that every single person is important. Even though Rey is a big role, everyone influences everyone. If that wasn't so, why would so many people remember Admiral Ackbar?

We need to feminise history because we are 50 per cent of the population, and our story is just as interesting.

It's very important to me that people get to see themselves in stories. When someone tells me they've never seen themselves, I have a new goal.

As a reader I want to be present and entertained. I don't want to be taught lessons, and I don't want to be spoken down to. I want to be treated as a peer and to be made to feel welcome.

There are stories to be told that are still untold and characters to be portrayed that haven't been portrayed correctly. So there's work to be done.

Depending on the story that you're telling, you can be relatable to everybody or nobody. I try and tell everybody's story.

I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population - and gave birth to the whole world. Without them writing and being directors, the rest of us are not going to know the whole story.

It's interesting because diversity doesn't just happen by garnishing your omelet with a little bit of parsley. Diversity happens because the people that are telling the stories - the writers, directors, storytellers - want to tell their story.

I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white. But I want tell stories that everybody can relate to, so I don't care who's opposite me.

I believe there's no such thing as history; there's only historians, and in English, we've got this word 'his'tory, but what about her story? So that, in the end, the history of the world would be a history of every single one of its members, but of course, you could never get to grips with that.

Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.

I think diversity has to happen on a storytelling level, not just on a casting level.

Some have said I focus on marginalized communities, but it's not like that was my mission statement. I've just told stories that interest me, and that I'm not seeing enough of, on groups of people and subcultures that are often not seen.

We wanted to write the first prequels as a story that anyone could pick up.

I have a profound resistance to the idea that a reader could say, 'Oh, well, that's her story.' We should all be interested, no matter where we come from, or who our parents are. It's not my province; it's ours. These questions concern us all.

It's not enough to be diverse in your casting. You have to service those characters; you have to make them fully well rounded because people are watching.

I think when we get to a place that this is not the story, that everyone's story is a part of the story, then we can say this has changed. Until then, these are steps to change if they're consistent.

Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one.

I think there's so many points of view that you want to make sure your stories are being told from men and women... you get all of the different backgrounds. You don't want every story being told from the same point of view. So just for better storytelling, I'm like, 'Yes, please, bring some more ladies on.'

I've always wanted to explore characters of all races, all genders, all ages. It just seems to me to be a natural way to approach any kind of storytelling.