[Kenneth Koch] taught children in public schools in New York City to write poems and told them down worry about rhyming, don't worry about any of that stuff. You know, write a poem where you mention three colors and make it five lines - or he would just give them, you know, little strategies. And, man, they wrote some great poems.

My films have sort of amateur elements, a naive quality, yet they have some sophisticated quality, sometimes the rhythm is kinda elegant.

I like to work with actors that have varied experiences. But I don't choose them because of their experience, I choose them because of qualities I think would make an interesting character and to me there is no one way to direct actors, there is only one way to collaborate with one person.

Now in the States if you look at the TV, you see the advertisements, the TV programmes, the pop videos, and the movies, they're all the same style. I think it's very condescending to the audience to assume they only have a three second attention span and so they don't leave anything on the screen for any longer. I don't understand that.

[Kenneth Koch] taught us to be playful, to be very appreciative of other poets, to appreciate all forms of expression. He taught us to be experimental.

I'm completely intuitive and I don't like to analyze things.

I think we need to sort of broaden our definition of poetry, which maybe it's a good thing that they just gave this Nobel Prize to [Bob] Dylan because blurring the lines of song lyrics and also hip-hop for me is like some of the greatest uses - most innovative uses of language in my lifetime.