I really feel kind of guilty spending 80 million dollars. People are starving in the world.

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.

I actually picked up copies of Decline I and II at a flea market once. I walked out without paying.

For the most part, studio movies have huge budgets. They don't do anything under 30 to 40 million. When you have that much money at stake, you have so many people breathing down your neck.

I got IRS records to finance what I wanted to do.

I like to think about society as being a flock of birds: There seems to be a common consciousness in different time periods, and the new common consciousness reacts to the old standards.

I was always into music. I think everyone is when they're a teenager, as a way to drown out the world.

Nobody wanted to touch Decline III when they found out what it was about.

Arnold and Jamie Lee must have worked over the years with directors that did 50 takes, because I'd get like three takes or so and say, Ok, that's it, we're done.

Decline III, I funded myself, from the studio money. That, and I sold a lot of drugs. Kidding. Don't print that.

I live on this nice three acres in Hollywood.

Some have brains, and some haven't, ... and there it is.

[Y]ou have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.

When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it.

In places where this beauty has already disappeared, we will reconstruct it.

I can imagine [the government] trying to tell Steven Spielberg 'We need 50 different cuts of your movie for each state.' It will screw us up in a real way.

In any show with a character that you really love, one inclination is to cure them of all their flaws but you remember that you like those flaws.

While I live, every criminal must die.

I may be a tough fellow but I have a reflective side as well. Reflective as in I'll bash your head in with a ****ing mirror.

So many of man's actions appear to have no immediate consequence but, concealed, do their work until finally all catches up and forms a complex web of cause and effect.

Look, you're really cute, but I can't understand what you're saying