It`s great to be able to drive around and spy on people, which I do when I'm writing. People tell me the most personal things about their lives for no reason - on airplanes, everywhere I go. People just blurt out secrets. I'm not sure why. I think that they see in my films that nothing will make me uptight. I'm not going to judge them.

The way I photograph... in many ways it's directed by chance and all my mistakes, which are often the best stuff. I found that no matter if it's the same tape, the same TV, and the same camera, I can never duplicate an image... your arm jiggles, there's just too much chance. And I never put it on pause, or use any of that fancy equipment.

Insider can be more ludicrous. How did I ever end up [as one]? Carsick [Waters's book on hitchhiking] was on the New York Times best-seller list for five weeks. [One of the characters was] a singing asshole that does a duet with Connie Francis! Times have changed. That's mainstream, in a weird way.

I don't like heroin, unless you're a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound of heroin.

You have to think of a new way to completely surprise people who think they're hip. I always said you could make an NC-17 movie with no sex and no violence. Now I don't know what that could possibly be, but if you could think it up, you'd have a hit.

I've signed peoples' parole cards at book signings and it's very touching.

I wish something on T.V. would trouble me. Then maybe I would watch it.