Cinema without risk is like having no sex and expecting to have a baby.

I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college.

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have.

I made this movie for $40,000, which was this little black-and-white horror film called Dementia 13, which we made in about nine days.

I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.

I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.

I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true.