('Eraserhead') may seem like a dark film, but my father and I watch it, and all we do is laugh. It was Disneyland everyday on the set. That's when I fell in love with film.

Writing was my companion and stories were my companion when I was bedridden and didn't think I was going to walk again and all of that treacherous stuff. And stories are how you can comfort a child. It's certainly how I comforted my daughter, in good and bad times.

The first time I saw 'Sunset Boulevard' I was probably eight or nine years old, and it really struck me how it's so simply put and elegant, yet there's so much going on.

When you finish some film and you let it out there, it is completely out of your control. You've done what you've done, you haven't done what you haven't done, and now you are up for judgment. People can be all kinds of ruthless and they can be all kinds of wonderful. The joy in what I do is in the doing of it. And then there is the part where people are either going to see what I've offered and liked it or they are going to see what I've offered and wish they hadn't.

When you love something, it never goes away.

I don't think if you asked any of my childhood friends they would say that I had a weird childhood; they might say there weren't a lot of regular rules, the conversations in the house were always very open, dreams were a great thing to talk about, everybody was making something all the time.

Try to be as good a listener as you are a speaker. Don't just put the emphasis on saying things. Listen.