My dentist said to me the other day: I've enough problems in my life, so why should I see your films?

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.

As a filmmaker, I ask questions but don't have answers. Moviemaking is a philosophical exploration. I invite the audience to come on the journey and discover what they think and feel.

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab.

All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true.

I can't imagine a life without humor. Especially if you have an existential understanding of life, you must acknowledge the absurdity of it all.

My understanding of life is very existential. I think that we are our bodies. There's nothing else, and when we die, that's it. No afterlife.

I like to laze around. I think that's a huge part of creativity. You have to let your mind relax and then another part of your brain suddenly connects with the solution you're trying to find.

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.

When I am creating art, I have absolutely no social responsibility. It's like dreaming.

Consciousness is the original sin: consciousness of the inevitability of our death.

Books may well be the only true magic.

The power of a young woman is in her beauty and charm. The power of a woman in her later years is her social position and her ability to convince.

Prithee don't screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.

As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.

Happy that New York passed marriage equality tonight. A victory for human rights. Progress.

In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.

I woke up early this mornin' with a new state of mind/ A creative way to rhyme without usin' knives and guns

I really can't imagine not singing again.

Nothing matches the holiness and fascination of accurate and intricate detail.

Because I can't handle the nightmares. Not without you.