I used to have to wear a gas mask to school when I was a kid because of the dust. I would tell people that the first light I saw was in a movie theater, because the sun was just a little glow.

I never really made any money and it certainly cost me more to take photographs than I got for them.

You're like a turd that won't flush.

In Method acting, you can't have preconceived ideas. You have to live in the moment. You have to keep yourself open.

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot.

[After Easy Rider] I couldn't get another movie, so I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years. I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I didn't take any photographs, and then I went to Japan and saw a Nikon used. I bought it, and I just started, like an alcoholic. I shot 300 rolls of film. That was the beginning of me starting again.

I was reading a lot of Thomas Jefferson at the time, and Jefferson said that every 20 years, if one party has stayed in power, it's your obligation as an American to vote the other party in.