The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.

I never start with the story first, which is maybe obvious, because the narrative line of my films is really not that strong or dramatic. They're very simple.

Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?

I went to graduate film school at NYU, and at first I didn't get a degree, because I took a scholarship that was supposed to pay my tuition, and I used it to make a film. For the longest time, I never actually graduated. And about 70 percent of the things I learned there I had to unlearn, but 30 percent was really valuable. It's like Mark Twain said, "Don't let school get in the way of your education."

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

I love John Ashbery. He's the - really the poet laureate of English language poetry, whether he's given that or not, he is to me.

I have a real respect for tobacco as a substance, and it just seems very funny how the Western attitude is, "Wow, people are addicted to this, think of all the money you can make off it."