I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something.

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny.

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.

We expect forty-year-olds to have grown up at some point, and to be engaged and adult and take responsibility, and doing nothing would seem to go against that.

I feel a real connection to Brooklyn, certainly, because I spent 20 years of my life there, but I don't think of myself as a Brooklyn artist any more than I think of myself as a male artist.

Peter Bogdanovich is a good friend.

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology.

I always viewed life as material for a movie.

We form our impression not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally, by comparing ourselves to people in the same boat as ourselves.

From our solitudewe shall create, forge songs, pour in the reflectionof the stars and refresh the mindabout the silk-ridden roads that wait for them who have forgotten to feel.

Part of courage is simple consistency.

We're travelling for about nine-and-a-half months a year.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

How is it that so often . . . I get the feeling I've worked hard to learn something I already know, or knew, once.

The EU must take on new responsibilities. And these new responsibilities call for intensifying the integration process.

I don't have to shoot from more than two feet. I'm top 50. I've got 23,000 from where I shoot.

The world of sleep has an existence of its own.