The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don’t, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won’t be seen as being original, somehow.

A lot of poets too live on the margins of social acceptance, they certainly aren't in it for the money. William Blake - only his first book was legitimately published.

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don’t, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won’t be seen as being original, somehow.

I prefer to be subcultural rather than mass-cultural. I'm not interested in hitting the vein of the mainstream.

Just write a poem as if you're writing a note to one other person.

I didn't get the degree because in my last year, for my thesis film I made a feature called Permanent Vacation and they'd given me a scholarship, the Louis B Mayer fellowship and they made a mistake.

I'm not interested in stories. Stories are interesting but I don't think my head works that way. I remember at age 10 I dreamt of making animated cartoons as loops, something you could just project on your wall and look at from time to time. Kind of, something to stare at, something that's always there.