I'm a cartoonist, it's what I am at heart, so cartoons take reality and deform it and make it grotesque, you make it funny, but you alter it. If it works, it's based on reality. That's what I try to do.

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

I got tired of my taxes paying for exciting little wars around the world. Then I discovered that when I died, my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay for the taxes in America.

A lot of people seem to get carried away that something that's made out of paper mâché is going to be better than not. And I always thought the original King Kong, that terrible little puppet with its hair going in all directions, was far more magical than Peter Jackson's incredibly beautifully rendered King Kong. So there's something to be said for a more primitive version of things. I think it's because it makes the audience work a little bit more, because you've got to invest it with life and reality, so I like doing that.

I just like the fact I can make a film which might give comfort to some people who think they are the only crazy person in the world and suddenly they see there are two crazy people in the world.

I hate losing laughs; they're rare things.

I find Hollywood gives these pat stories, and they're reassuring stories, and I don't really want to give people that. Hollywood does all that work. I'm offering, sometimes, an alternative to that. The answers aren't black-and-white. There may not even be answers in certain instances. The ground is not necessarily solid, either. So you've got to keep awake the whole time, even after the movie is over.