. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.

I think a lot of people in Washington are extremely suspicious of NASA.

When you follow your thoughts and watch them attach to certain things, it makes certain things real and other things unreal, and you realize that this is all created by your mind.

Life goes by so fast. It's really - and a lot of times things happen so fast you don't know - how should I react.

Audiences, whether they're seeing a film or a reading or whatever it is, a concert, they decide very quickly what kind of show it is, and then they judge it. They judge the rest of the thing by whether it conforms to their rules for what a good symphony orchestra would be.

I'm thrilled by the fact that I made something out of nothing. There it is! It wasn't there before: there it is - I made it! That's pretty powerful, and that's the power that Buddhists give to every single person.

People who were born alone are defined by feelings like "Who's gonna be with me when I die? Who will ever understand me? Will I always feel so alone? Maybe if I write a book..." and you forget that that doesn't help you so much.