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.

For an artist, to be normal is a disaster

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

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.

Are you exciting to be with... or are you boring like the rest of them?

Look, I went to a lot of trouble to come here and try to help you. I’m in more trouble than I can guess, but if you don’t want my help… maybe I should have just stayed home.

Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.

Most evil comes from the belief that one is a victim, or one's group is a victim

I think I'm getting wealthy in ways that don't count at the bank.

Opposing [Donald]Trump aligns you with Hamas.

It's one thing to make peace with the idea of something that's going to happen someday; it's another to find yourself at that day.

I’d seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.

No, no, I was only funny on stage, really. I think I was funny as a person toward my classmates when I was very young. You know, when I was a child, up to about the age of 12.

Being born in Jamaica, race was never an issue. It was always about the type of person I wanted to be, not the colour of my skin.