If you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.

Once the voices are in your head, it's either make a movie or kill a lot of people.

Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it's not mediocre.

I was getting frustrated with America. It's interesting how as simple a thing as, like, letting your hair grow longer changed in the world in those days.

I do think so much of what I do is reactive to the way the world sees itself, or the way the world is being portrayed. I wanted to offer an alternative to that. Whether it is accepted or not is beside the point, but it's an alternative.

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.

I have always got medicine I want to give to people.