Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.

I'm actually embarrassed to tell people I'm Russian these days, because it's become such an awful place.

I've been lucky to be able to work with great people and on interesting material.

Most of the girls I know are from my school. I've gone to school with the same people since fourth grade, so I can't wait to go to a place where I don't know anybody.

Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.

I think the beauty of images is that they are by definition fetishes and every image (banal or not) as a fetish holds within it the promise of a sensuousness that (without generalizing) at least I, as a human being, am drawn to.

The music that really moves me is music that's written by people where there isn't a lot of money and they're really singing with just their voice and a guitar about their feelings and about their life. Their poetry is relatively simple, in the sense that it's about their soul in jeopardy.