David Lynch is very important to me, and he does dreamlike movies, but my dreams are not like David Lynch's dreams. I have no interest in copying anybody's work. It would never occur to me to want this to look like someone else's thing.

Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.

Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope.

Sometimes I don't like the books that I'm reading.

You're dealing with the body, and you're dealing with bodily functions. We romanticize everything about people in movies.

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

I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everything to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt.