My favorite novel in the world is Frankenstein. I'm going to misquote it horribly, but the monster says, "I have such love in me, more than you can imagine. But, if I cannot provoke it, I will provoke fear."

In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh– whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish– thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust.

Somebody said to me, in a very well-meaning way, at a screening, "We love the movie but it's too violent. If you tone down the violence you could reach a great audience of kids.".

The other thing that I started doing for myself was, I went through my diary of ideas that I keep and made sure that the translation of the comic to the movie was good.

Even if one understands that what one is doing is mad, it is indeed still madness -

America is old tobacco: gold and green. It's lush and literally feels like wealth, like optimism, turn of the century America where everything was blooming.

I love the idea of creating a sort of nuanced portrait of kids that they're not all perfect. They're kind of misfits but not in a picturesque, hip way, they're really, really kids that are not entirely great.