I supported myself by delivering the 'Wall Street Journal' and doing odd jobs. I love plumbing and carpentry.

The day you catch an idea you fall in love with, even a small one, is a beautiful day.

To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.

I love Christmas tree bulbs, and I started putting them in my paintings. You've got to plug this painting in, and it's got a rig in the back, so that each one can be replaced if it burns out.

In my mind it's so much fun to have something that has clues and is mysterious - something that is understood intuitively rather than just being spoon-fed to you. That's the beauty of cinema, and it's hardly ever even tried. These days, most films are pretty easily understood, and so people's minds stop working.

Achievement is its own reward

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