Fellini was [David] Lynch's master and his biggest idol, and he believed in Fellini's view that film is a dream, it's not reality. It's all about delving into the unconscious.

If they could say that to their patients, it could be a way to treatment, as in both working on it and preserving it. That could give a patient the faith to fully experience that beauty, without reliving the torment.

Emotions are what drives everyone. You get up in the morning and go do something because the emotion drives you to it.

Love is the most universal experience. There is nothing more important than love, there is nothing more meaningful than love, and there is nothing more human in people's relationships than love.

The patient needs to believe that they can keep the fire while being medicated. The doctors must tell them, "I understand that you experienced something beautiful. I understand that you saw the stars pulsing spirals of fire across the sky like Van Gogh did when he was looking outside the sanitarium window. But you know what? He didn't paint ['Starry Night'] when he was manic. He painted it when he was sane because he didn't need the mania to have the magic."

That is the beauty when I discovered the label 'Touched With Fire.' That book defined it for me, I could be that. And we just happen to be living in one age of society that put these various labels on the condition. In Aristotle's time, it was the 'inspired state.' In the Native American cultures, you were the shaman. Labels and language creates realities, even if they are false.

When you encounter that first love, a young love, you do feel that your story is original. You are utterly convinced that your story has never been told before, because it hasn't.