If I can avoid the mirror when I brush my teeth in the morning, I will. I find security and safety in the most profound degree of ignorance. If you can just stay ignorant of almost everything you'll be OK. It's fine to stay informed and look at things, but to judge things will bog you down.

I'm having too much fun today to worry about tomorrow.

I'm not blockbuster boy.

One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of “french fries” to “freedoom fries” and “french toast” to “freedom toast”. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.

In terms of it being a first screenplay, literally, my hat is off to him [Wally Pfister]. I didn't see any virgin blather in screen direction, or anything like that. It was just a wonderfully executed piece, and a complicated one. The mathematics involved in putting this film together, between Jack and Wally, and the great support of Alcon, it was not a easy little operetta.

They said, "You get $2 million to make the film, if you're not in it. If you are in it, you get $5 million to make the film." There was no way to make the thing for $2 million, so I made it for $5 million. And then, it turned out there was no way to make the thing for $5 million. That's when it got weird.

[The huge success of Curse of the Black Pearl] made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed. Even now, with the dolls and the cereal boxes and snacks and fruit juices, it all just feels fun to me, in a Warholian way. It's absurd. It doesn't get more absurd.