In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.

For an artist, to be normal is a disaster

My films are the celebration of reality, of life, of my friends, of actual daily life that passes and is gone tomorrow. We don't pay attention to it when it happens.

An adventurer can always return home; an exile cannot. So I decided that my home would be culture.

In Lithuania, I am known as a poet, and they don’t care about my cinema. In Europe they don’t know my poetry; in Europe, I am a filmmaker. But here, in the United States, I am only a maverick!

In a meadow full of flowers you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry of life.

The deeper I went into culture, the more confused I got. So I needed something more real. I said, "Okay, from now on, my country will be cinema."

The nature of the video camera really makes you focus on the present. Since I have always been a diarist filmmaker, not one who stages scenes with actors, it has always been about the present moment.

Seek the insignificant small but essential qualities, essential to life

I'm not an abstract artist; I leave that to others. To me, abstract art ended with Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square.' To continue it is senseless.

We are the measure of all things. And the beauty of our creation, of our art is proportional to the beauty of ourselves of our souls.

To admit your ignorance is freeing. To say, "I don't know" is to free yourself from having to come up with a bullshit answer.

There is beauty and darkness in everything. Sorrow in joy, life in death, thorns on the rose.

I try not to look backwards, Elise. Makes is hard to see where you're going.

Citizen's arrest, " he said. "Well, that, and Patch told me to.

He made it hard for a girl to not fall head over heels.

I think sports is one of the places where race plays itself out publicly. Although we pretend it doesn't.

The idea that marriage has to be for all time - that I don't understand.

But it is really, really fun to just change it up some and to absolutely be a very small spoke on a big wheel, and to just be a part of that and contribute to something that people can enjoy.

[N]o one's ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It's just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred.

Part of life is to live it, and enjoy it, and seize the moments that you find particularly pleasing.