When I get depressed, or anything, I go ‘think of all the music I haven’t even heard yet!’ So, it’s the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?
If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.
The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.
I prefer to be subcultural rather than mass-cultural. I’m not interested in hitting the vein of the mainstream.
Jim Jarmusch: Poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision.
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it.
I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films – although I think they do have plots – but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
It’s hard to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going.
When I hear the word ‘independent’ I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film. Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I’m the Queen of Denmark. I don’t know what it means anymore.
I’d wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema.
It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn’t have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things.
Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.
Separate two particles, place them at opposite ends of the universe, produce some effect in one, and the other will be identically affected.
I thought The Limits of Control could be interpreted in two ways: as the limits of one’s self-control; and as the limits of allowing other people’s control over one’s -consciousness – which I kind of thought was a double meaning that was appropriate.
Baseball is one of the most beautiful games. It is. It is a very Zen-like game.
Cricket makes no sense to me. I find it beautiful to watch and I like that they break for tea. That is very cool, but I don’t understand. My friends from The Clash tried to explain it years and years ago, but I didn’t understand what they were talking about.
When I left Ohio when I was 17 and ended up in New York and realised that not all films had the giant crab monsters in them, it really opened up a lot of things for me.
When I’m trying to imagine something, I have a few elements, a few ideas, maybe a certain actor or actress I want to create a certain type of character for, or maybe a certain place.
For me, the music is always like the small rowboat I get into at the very beginning of my process.