I like L.A. because of the light. The light makes me feel so good. It's really beautiful. And there's something about L.A. being so spread out that gives you a feeling of freedom. Light and freedom.
— David Lynch
I don't like Thomas Edison. I'm a fan of Nicolai Tesla.
Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs.
I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it.
If we didn't want to upset anyone, we would make films about sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film, it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience.
I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.
Digital video is so beautiful. It's lightweight, modern, and it's only getting better. It's put film into the La Brea Tar Pits.
There are only 24 hours in a day, and my top priority is working on my films, but I love short film experiments.
I supported myself by delivering the 'Wall Street Journal' and doing odd jobs. I love plumbing and carpentry.
I've said many, many, many unkind things about Philadelphia, and I meant every one.
You're right on the money with that. We're all like detectives in life. There's something at the end of the trail that we're all looking for.
My cow is not pretty, but it is pretty to me.
Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.
I like cappuccino, actually. But even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all.
If you stay true to your ideas, film-making becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process.
I like watercolours. I like acrylic paint... a little bit. I like house paint. I like oil-based paint, and I love oil paint. I love the smell of turpentine and I like that world of oil paint very, very, very much.
Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas.
In Hollywood, more often than not, they're making more kind of traditional films, stories that are understood by people. And the entire story is understood. And they become worried if even for one small moment something happens that is not understood by everyone.
I like things to be orderly.
Sometimes I get an idea for cinema. And when you get an idea that you fall in love with, this is a glorious day.
The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.
To me, a story can be both concrete and abstract, or a concrete story can hold abstractions. And abstractions are things that really can't be said so well with words.
Francis Bacon is one of my giant inspirations. I just love him to pieces.
I think that ideas exist outside of ourselves. I think somewhere, we're all connected off in some very abstract land. But somewhere between there and here ideas exist.
The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead.
I didn't watch much TV as a kid and I don' t watch it now. I don' t find anything beautiful or unique to the medium, and the only thing you can do on TV that you can't do in film is make a continuing story - which is so cool!
Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd.
Somewhere in talking and rehearsing, there is a magical moment where actors catch a current, they're on the right road. If they really catch it, then whatever they do from then on is correct and it all comes out of them from that point on.
People think in Hollywood there's a family, where everybody gets together talks about stuff and we all know each other, and it's just not that way at all to me.
Transcendental meditation is like a car, a vehicle that allows you to go within. It's a mental technique.
As a kid, I was always building things. My father had a shop in the house, and we built things - we were kind of a project family. I started out as a painter, and then painting led to cinema, and in cinema, you get to build so many things, or help build them.
I'm not a real film buff. Unfortunately, I don't have time. I just don't go. And I become very nervous when I go to a film because I worry so much about the director and it is hard for me to digest my popcorn.
See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of.
I love paint. I like watercolours. I like acrylic paint... a little bit. I like house paint. I like oil-based paint, and I love oil paint. I love the smell of turpentine and I like that world of oil paint very, very, very much.
Everyone is on the internet but they're not all talking with each other. There are groups upon groups out there, but they don't talk to one another. So while the internet brings everyone into a shared space, it does not necessarily bring them together.
A film - especially when it's a personal film - is going to hit somebody or it's not. There's nothing you can do about it.
Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.
It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.
This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.
Television provides the opportunity for an ongoing story - the opportunity to meld the cast and the characters and a world, and to spend more time there.
The concept of absurdity is something I'm attracted to.
