It's important that a film is loud and I hope many people agree. You should be inside of a film when you go into a theater. It should surround you, envelope you, so you can live inside a dream.

I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream. I always say getting inspiration is like fishing. If you're quiet and sitting there and you have the right bait, you're going to catch a fish eventually. Ideas are sort of like that. You never know when they're going to hit you.

I love mysteries. To fall into a mystery and its danger ... everything becomes so intense in those moments. When most mysteries are solved, I feel tremendously let down. So I want things to feel solved up to a point, but there's got to be a certain percentage left over to keep the dream going. It's like at the end of Chinatown: The guy says, 'Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.' You understand it, but you don't understand it, and it keeps that mystery alive. That's the most beautiful thing.

I thought when I started meditation that I was going to get real calm and peaceful and it's going to be over. It's not that way; it's so energetic. That's where all the energy and creativity is.

Death in my mind isn't a finality. There's a continuum: It's like at night, you go to sleep and in the daytime you wake up, or whenever you wake up, and it's a new day.

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.

Being in darkness and confusion is interesting to me.