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

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.

A filmmaker doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand it. You don’t have to die to shoot a death scene.

What do you fear, most of all? The possibility that love may not be enough.

Films are 50 percent visual and 50 percent sound. Sometimes sound even overplays the visual.

Don’t allow yourself to be mad over something that’s not in your control.

Journaling helps me sing lullaby to my fears and worries, allowing them to sleep.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

The universe never allows you to be comfortable when you are limiting yourself.

Love yourself & don’t allow anyone to contaminate you.

Look at people like an unfinished work of art. Allow them to change, allow them to grow.

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.