The filmmaker Amos Poe was a huge inspiration for me by making guerrilla-style punk films on the streets of New York and - well, it's just a lot of painters and artists and filmmakers all within that scene, and it's very, very important to me.

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.

When I'm trying to imagine something, I have a few elements, a few ideas, maybe a certain actor or actress I want to create a certain type of character for, or maybe a certain place.

I had this idea for a long time to make a film about a poet in Paterson named Patterson. I wanted him to be working class. Eventually I thought a bus was a perfect visual way to move him, to drift him through the city, to have a measured kind of routine lifestyle. And all these things kind of congealed into the film "Paterson" eventually.

I think you can only be nostalgic for something you've lost.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it.

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.