Some people must go to extremes to get the world in balance for themselves. Some can't bear bright lights, so wherever they go they search for the dark; they turn the lights down, anything to sustain some level of comfort.

I never paid much attention to being Jewish when I was a kid. In fact, I'd say my religion was more surfing than Judaism - that's what I spent most of my time doing.

Everything I've seen becomes real once it becomes memory. The films I've seen are interchangeable with things that have really happened to me.

I guess I am ruthless too because that's what makes a great artist. But I also respect people, I don't go around stepping on their heads.

When I made my first film, Basquiat, I think one of the criticisms was that the way I work is episodic. Later, as people started to look at the movies, they started to realize that maybe that's my style. If I could do it better or another way, I guess I would.

Maybe my work looks a little crazy, a little insane, but I don't really see myself as a crazy artist or a shaman artist.

I don't know if I could, like, see a face and know what the face of beauty looks like, but after I've seen it I know if I've felt like it was beauty.