We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn't feel like they had enough to do.

That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.

It was a real whale, a photograph of a real whale. I looked into its tiny wise eye and wondered where that eye was now. Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second? When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.

My way into making movies - into making things is general - has been through performing.

Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

I don't tally the world, asking, "Would this annoy you? Would this annoy you?" That's so far removed from where I'm at when I'm in the trenches struggling with how to express things that I don't fully understand myself.

I'm interested in what the virtues of all those things are, especially for the kind of person who's made their own world that revolves around them, like writers do. It seems especially precious.