I like the saying: "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same - the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds - every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with.

I didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.

Stories always have held conflicts and contrasts, highs and lows, life and death situations. And there can be much suffering in stories, but now we say the artist doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand the human condition, understand the suffering.

Surface cures are not going to get rid of the torment that's inside.

I like people who, you know, as you go along in life, you know, a thing happens, and people become a seeker. They look for something to give them the path to their full potential. I like them to know about transcendental mediation, but they've got to make up their own mind to take it and use it.

Music has fed me a lot of ideas... The film BLUE VELVET came out of Bobby Vinton's version of the song BLUE VELVET.

Stories hold conflict and contrast, highs and lows, life and death, and the human struggle and all kinds of things.