“Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.”

Sugar does make people happy, but then you fall off the edge after a few minutes, so I’ve really pretty much cut it out of my diet. Except for cupcakes. I like those.

The day you catch an idea you fall in love with, even a small one, is a beautiful day.

The artist does not have to suffer to show suffering.

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

I like things that go into hidden, mysterious places, places I want to explore that are very disturbing. In that disturbing thing, there is sometimes tremendous poetry and truth.

I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.

Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas. But wood can translate ideas, too. You have wood and then you get a chair. Some ideas are for different things.

Life is filled with abstractions, and the only way to make heads or tails of it is going through intuition.

Many things happen that we don’t know the significance of until a little bit later.

My cow is not pretty, but it is pretty to me.

I just like going into strange worlds.

Be true to yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. And start your Transcendental Meditation.

I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.

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.

All my movies are about strange worlds that you can’t go into unless you build them and film them. That’s what’s so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds.

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.

I wasn’t allowed to go to movies when I was kid; my father was a minister. 101 Dalmatians and King of Kings, that was the extent of it.

You have to allow the paint to break to make it beautiful.

People might look at you a bit funny, but it’s okay. Artists are allowed to be a bit different.

Freedom of mind allows us to keep receiving what we didn’t know we needed.

Don’t allow people behaviour to turn you into a person you are not.

Change allows us to live as the best version of ourselves.

I’m not going to say I’m sorry for the things that I’ve done because I think that it allows me to tell a story.

Don’t allow the world to define your life. Instead, allow yourself to open the eyes of the world.