It's time now to rent a car, roll down the windows and prepare for your first big thrill: the freeways. They're so much fun they should charge admission. Never fret about zigzagging back and forth through six lanes of traffic at high speeds; it erases jet lag in a split second. You're now heading toward Hollywood, like any normal tourist. Breathe in that smog and feel lucky that only in L.A. will you glimpse a green sun or a brown moon. Forget the propaganda you've heard about clean air; demand oxygen you can see in all its glorious discoloration.

I make independent movies. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know any other job that I could really get.

My hobby is extreme Catholic behavior - before the Reformation.

If you ever go home with somebody and they don't have books in their house, don't sleep with them. I think that's very important.

I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.

Many hundred-million-dollar Hollywood comedies aren't any good. They're trying to shock you.

Wouldn't you rather your kid be a drug dealer than a drug addict?