It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.

I think people have problems sometimes when things are too general. In fact, they are not really general at all.

I think basically I'm a painter, but I would use anything to make my point.

I think that truth is stranger than fiction, and it's nice to know the people you're making a movie about.

I have a completely romantic idea about making paintings, I guess.

I think the nice thing about showing work in New York is that other artists come to see it. When you show work in Switzerland or somewhere else, everywhere else seems to be the provinces in a certain way. You wonder what your paintings are doing on the walls and you wonder who's looking at them.

Many people say to me, "I saw [Miral] and it really stayed with me. I woke up the next day and really thought about it, and have been thinking about it for awhile." That was my goal.