I think it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart.

Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it's what you want to do and it's within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.

In work, never have any regrets and always leave everything on the field.

Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real.

Not to say that you should be constantly trying to change the world, but I think it's important to know that whatever we do has an implication and has an effect, and because of that it is political.

I know exactly what that movie's [Brokeback mountain] about. I can't define it; it doesn't tie up in a perfect bow. But it's about adolescence. It's about what it feels like - this isn't meant as a criticism, but like things I didn't relate to, which were high school movies. Where I'd watch it and I'd be like, "Well, am I like the kid that nobody likes? Or am I like the person who everybody [likes]?" I couldn't [tell]. I was like quantifying, putting me in a box. "This is my personality at that age" and "I'm this kind of person" just felt like bullshit to me.

It's daunting trying to do any service as an American to such a beautiful, fluid speech pattern that you [British] all have. We are just barbarians in comparison.