The only honest and generous thing for me to do is to give people myself. That's all I've got as an artist, so I want to do that in an unflinching way.

I do a lot of things intuitively. I'm not often consciously aware of what I'm doing. It's like in a dream: There's something going on that's powerful but you don't know exactly why.

I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.

You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?

Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.

Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true.

I'm in my mind a lot. I live there.

I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.

The end is built into the beginning.

Writing is a journey into the unknown.

The only way to do something interesting is not care if you fail.

You are what you love. Not what loves you.

I didn't have any desire I might have had 10 years ago to shoot every single word that I wrote.

Clinton used to like to get out of the White House a lot. He would take night trips to McDonald's, and stuff like that. I think he wanted to get out of the house.

I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it.

Of course, I'm no dummy.

I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.