Quotes from Cheo Hodari Coker

Police officers see everything, and they experience everything, and they don't always act correctly.

The first 'Creed' is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

When I was a journalist, I didn't care how many people talked to Ice Cube before I talked Ice Cube. I just knew that when I talked to Ice Cube, it was going to be different than what anybody else had done, and it was the same with any group.

Alfre Woodard is a powerhouse, master actor, but she's also someone that you want to interact with, someone that you want to talk to.

As long as black people preserve their culture in Harlem, Harlem will always be alive.

I just felt that Danny Rand within the Luke Cage universe... I just felt that he was going to be dope.

When you're writing about cops from the perspective of cops, that level of sarcasm about their job and how they treat people will color the writing to a certain extent.

The thing about being black in a mostly white industry, particularly as a black male, is you can't lose your temper in the same way. Essentially, you are an angry black man losing his temper in a way that's unprofessional, as opposed to an industry that has protected unprofessional white males in perpetua.

For 'Luke Cage,' of course, I was familiar with Power Man and Iron Fist. I read the comics. That was really more stuff that you read for fun. It wasn't that you read either of those comics for profound moments, although they have profound moments.

Fatherhood is something that is personal to me because I didn't grow up around my father.

Because I'm a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you're going to eviscerate us, be specific.

To me, Harlem is one of the most important places on the earth, particularly when it comes to talking about African Americans.

The power that you have as a storyteller is to be able to tell stories that are at once entertaining but also never lose sight of what's going on in the real world.

The difference between a Marvel superhero and a DC superhero is that we place Marvel superheroes in the real world that we recognize and that we know.

The reason that Shaft has a dominant theme song is because James Bond has a dominant theme song.

All black art is always judged to illuminate our experience and prove that our stories and our history and our lives matter. And that goes back to Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston - take your pick.

One of my biggest influences, of course, is David Simon and his work on 'The Wire.'

'The Wire' is, by far, my favorite television show of all time. And I've always said that my aspirations for 'Luke Cage' was that it would be 'The Wire' of the Marvel television universe.

Black women are the most passionate commentators, and even as black female geeks and nerds, they are rarely acknowledged.

One of my favorite comic books of all-time is the graphic novel 'God Loves, Man Kills.'

The thing that was fascinating and frustrating about Pac was that he clearly knew better than to go down the gangster road that he went down. Pac knew - and he was right - that thug energy could be redirected into fearless positivity.

Harlem has always been the nexus of music, politics, culture, criminal figures.

If you're a black person in America, it's really hard to avoid being black. And what I mean is that the reality of your cultural history, regardless of whether or not you talk about it, it's there.

When you scratch the soul of hip-hop, you find R&B and funk but also reggae.