There's no need to be tragic or destroy yourself or jump off a cliff. That's no longer the paradigm I wish to follow, or that anyone should follow. It is not necessary to be tragic. It's bullshit that women can't have it all. Why not? Other people do.

Punk rock, when I was a part of it, was called 'the underground.' There was something very attractive in all the hidden places, the hidden histories.

She [Bettie Page] was a traumatized person, but she did have an active sex life.

My films have elements of genre in them, which prevents them from being purely art films.

There's no need to be tragic or destroy yourself or jump off a cliff. That's no longer the paradigm I wish to follow, or that anyone should follow. It is not necessary to be tragic. It's bullshit that women can't have it all. Why not? Other people do.

Growing up, I was lucky that my dad was never out of work. I was very fortunate in one way: that I never experienced real hardship, because my dad is this real dynamo. He was always working, so I had a sense of the ups and downs and endless disappointments, but at the same time I was never worried that we couldn't eat or pay the bills.

I just don't think I'm an ideological filmmaker in any way. I don't know how anyone could see anything I've done and see that.