I'm naturally inclined to want to be funny and make people laugh, and that's what I want to do with my life. I also want to do it on an intelligent level. I want to kill the clown but I also want to preserve the comedian.

The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe.

As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk.

I don't use iMovie and don't use shitty little cameras to try to prove something or say something because that's a part of the process. We do it just because that's what we like to use.

For me, when we came out with a TV show, my HBO show, so much of the feedback was, "How do I do it?" And my response was always the same: "Just make something." Stop talking about it. You do in a way that the work takes on a life of its own. Like the "Signature" series [(2008), in which the artist trekked across the United States in the shape of his own signature] was a simple concept that became this story about the people you met along the way.

Free time is the enemy of progress

I'm definitely curious about what the new iPhone and it's video editing capabilities will lend to that.