Well, I want to do everything in sort of a documentary style, ever since I started in the '80s.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

I used to take photographs just to remember people.

For all the boredom the straight life brings, it's not too bad.

I was once a shameless, full-time dope fiend.

Now the music industry is sort of like a Craigslist venture, right? Where you're making your own records and selling them online.

I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.

The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.

Sometimes getting upset with yourself is necessary when you face the truth.

Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information.

I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.

Persist in the pursuit of your passion.

True peace is when you can be happy in the midst of chaos.

For some, the past is a chain, each day a link, raveling backward to one ringbolt or another, in one dark place or another, and tomorrow is a slave to yesterday.

Make lots of money. Enjoy the work. Operate within the law. Choose any two of three

Most of Ayn Rand's major characters are already formed at the start of the stories.

What can you do in order to save your own banks?

I've never seen a surface that I think is more seductive in image making.

People's lives are in the care of the railways when they get on a train. The railways should remember that.

When I was young, I flirted with the idea of a career in journalism on one hand and politics on the other.

A leader must have a servant's heart. And if he has a servant's heart, he will act like a servant and react like a servant when he is treated like a servant.