The world is a strange and wonderful place.

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future

I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual.

. . . 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.

That's really a very different experience: You don't have to look to be understood. You're already understood.

I think illusion is one of the most interesting things that I've found to think about. Just look at yesterday, and what you were doing, and how important it was, and how nonexistent it is now! How dreamlike it is! Same thing with tomorrow. So where are we living?

Dogs don't just like us, they love us, and they admire us. The big reason they admire us is we invented cars. They're like, "Yes, we get to go somewhere!" Go somewhere faster, with their head out the window, and their ears, like, "Yes! Yes!"