I think that commercials can really ruin a song. You know that the person sold the song for a good deal of money, and that was the tradeoff. But, music and picture can marry in a beautiful way, and the reverse also.

Sometimes I get ideas for lyrics in anyplace, but I work a lot in the studio. So I collect little bits of lyrics. I go through the box of lyrics I have and see if something fits.

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.

Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.

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.

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.

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.

A lot of artists think they want anger. But a real, strong, bitter anger occupies the mind, leaving no room for creativity.

You get a painting idea, and you go do that. You get a cinema idea, and you go in to do that. The difference is, even though the paintings might take some time to make, with cinema you are booked for a year and a half, minimum.

I believe in creative control. No matter what anyone makes, they should have control over it.

A lot of music doesn't do one thing or another. It just doesn't do anything. Then there are those pieces of music that thrill your soul. It's such a wide range, and it's really interesting that we all love different things.

I always loved smokestack industry, and I love towns or cities that have grown up around factories.

I don't like Thomas Edison. I'm a fan of Nicolai Tesla.

I love music, of course, and many, many, many genres. There are hardly any songs I would say that I hate. There's a couple, and I don't even know exactly why I don't like them.

Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn't mean just a small happiness. It's huge. It is profound.

Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music.

I've loved music always, and my music fire was lit by Elvis Presley, really, and all that was happening back then.

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.

Most of Hollywood is about making money - and I love money, but I don't make the films thinking about money.

More and more people are seeing the films on computers - lousy sound, lousy picture - and they think they've seen the film, but they really haven't.

I love Christmas tree bulbs, and I started putting them in my paintings. You've got to plug this painting in, and it's got a rig in the back, so that each one can be replaced if it burns out.

I think part of the reason ideas haven't come in is that the world of cinema is changing so drastically, and in a weird way, feature films I think have become cheap. Everything is kind of throwaway. It's experienced and then forgotten.

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.

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.

Francis Bacon is one of my giant inspirations. I just love him to pieces.

I've always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal.

Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.

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.

I like things to be orderly.

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.

I didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.

I love the quality, feel and history of film. I love the pictures of the giant cameras and the way it was.

I was raised Presbyterian, but I'm not really going to church. I think the experience in meditation is pretty much where it's at for me.

I have no problem getting financing. I have a problem catching ideas that I fall in love with for the next feature.

Somehow, the French got this idea of the starving artist. Very romantic, except it's not so romantic for the starving artist.

Building a set is like building a place, but it's a temporary place, because sets usually get torn down. Kind of unfortunate.

To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.

Some things we forget. But many things we remember on the mental screen, which is the biggest screen of all.

I always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is my biggest influence. But for painters, I like many, many painters, but I love Francis Bacon the most, and Edward Hopper.

What I really like is to be at home, working.

The greatest thing my father left me was a love for cutting wood - my love for sawing, especially pine wood.