One cliche attached to bookish people is that they are lonely, but for me books were my way out of being lonely.

There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don't really see the difference. We find ourselves through the process of escaping.

Minds have their own weather systems. You are in a hurricane. Hurricanes run out of energy eventually. Hold on.

Forcing yourself to see the world through love's gaze can be healthy. Love is an attitude to life. It can save us.

That kind of monotony that running generates - the one soundtracked by heavy breathing and the steady rhythm of feet on pavements - became a kind of metaphor for depression.

The way out is never through yourself.

I wanted to be dead. No. That's not quite right. I didn't want to be dead, I just didn't want to be alive.

Goals are the source of misery. An unattained goal causes pain, but actually achieving it brings only a brief satisfaction.

A million people a year kill themselves. Between ten and twenty million people a year try to. Worldwide, men are over three times more likely to kill themselves than women.

Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you.

There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.

Inspirations never go in for long engagements they demand immediate marriage to action.

Primitive does not mean stupid.

Just as darkness is sometimes defined as the absence of light, so age is defined as the absence of youth.

When you resist a difficulty you antagonize it, and it bites back.

Most smoked salts are made with liquid smoke, which is a condensate, but really, really good smoked salt is literally smoked.

There's a world out there. Open a window, and it's there.

I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director.

I was in the school plays, I did a lot of music. I carried on through university for short films and loads of plays.

I know the Pope is opposed to the use of condoms. All I can say is, I am a spiritual man and I've been happily married for 21 years. I don't even know what a condom is anymore.

There is no comment on pictures but pictures, on music but music, on poems but poetry. If you do, you do. If you don't, you don't. And that's all there is to that.