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.

I want people to see the beauty of that condition through the eyes of the characters. In doing that, they can allow people who have the condition to be more accepting of it, and to be open about it. That would be a contribution to the people who have it, and considering that 38% of the Pulitzer Prize winning poets are Bipolar, to think about how much these individuals have contributed to the human spirit.

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

I feel much more emotion than I did before, and more meaningful emotion and richer emotion than when I was manic. I'm able to experience meaningful things that can only be experienced when I'm stable, like a family.

I want the audience to think about how many people are hiding in the shadows with the condition. I want the film to take away the stigma of thinking of this as a disease and an illness to be crushed. I want those in the condition to shine and contribute to the human spirit.

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.

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.