"I live way out in the country, so there's not a lot of people around to remind me. And my friends don't think of me as `Kim Novak' anymore anyway. It's like they forgot, too. And so it's nice. I had a lot of resentment for a while toward Kim Novak. But I don't mind her anymore. She's okay. We've become friends. I even asked her before this trip for some beauty tips."

"I don't keep up with anything that's said. If I paid attention to the good things, I'd have to pay attention to the bad things. I don't keep up with all that. It's better to just go along and do what you do. For a long time when I was in Hollywood, I did pay attention and it was confusing. It led you down a jagged path. It pulled you in one direction, then another direction. I would get off my focus. I had a hard time with boundaries."

"I said, `I'm not going to change my family name.' Harry Cohn said, `Well, nobody's going to go see a girl with a Polack name.' I said, `Well, I'm Czech, but Polish, Czech, no matter, it's my name.'"

"What I really liked about him was he never messed with my mind as far as interpretation. Bad directors would try to tell you how to think. That's so disruptive. It's just very disruptive unless you both come to an agreement on the character. Hitchcock was very precise about where he wanted you to stand. He never messed with your interpretation. It was wonderful. That gave you the freedom as a performer. I didn't agree with him about the costumes, but on the other hand, he let me express my views."

"[Vertigo] was before its time, really. I was not appreciated in my time. I think I'm appreciated more now. I'm glad to know that I'm still around to know that I'm more appreciated now."

"The making of a picture involves two processes: a taking in of the impression and giving out of it by the visible expression. (....) The degree of beauty in a picture depends upon the feeling for beauty in the artist and his power to express it."

"The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man's inhumanity to man.(...) My goal was not to offend the beauty in nature, but rather to share with others those aspects of it that have given me so much joy."

"Color is life, or a world without color appears to us as dead. Colors are the children of light, and light is their mother. Light (...) reveals to us the spirit and living soul of the world, through colors. The colors of the rainbow and the Northern Lights soothe and elevate the soul. The rainbow is accounted as a symbol of peace."

"In my opinion Black art is a misnomer. There are black artists and they, like all others, draw from they experiences to produce artistic expressions. If this expression is non representational, it is difficult or not impossible to tell whether the artist is white or non white. There can be no doubt however of the impact traditional African art has had on the world of modern art."

"Art is inevitably the expression of external conditions, modified though they be by the genius and personality of the artist."

"Once you're directing, you're kind of in a certain mode, where you're taking whatever is on the page and forming it into the film that you think it might want to be. So whether it's my writing or not, I still try to work with it in the same way."

"It was such a privilege to work with Gus — a true luxury for me, as watching ‘My Own Private Idaho’ almost 30 years ago was an eye-opener for me, it made me understand who I am in a delicate way."

"I've stayed in touch with Gus over the years, and there have been a couple of things that were looked at, but never quite worked. But I was always interested in working with him again, because he was so instrumental in the kind of actor I am. I worked with him at a really crucial part of my career. I hadn't worked since I was a kid, and then I worked when I was 19 years old. He really changed the way I thought about acting. So I was really eager to work with him again. The process was incredible. In some ways, it was like being back in '95 or whenever it was."

"I grew up on the experimental cinema coming out of New York and San Francisco in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s."

"Elephant, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, is Van Sant's masterpiece."

"For me it was a lot like using music. I used it when I felt that it was right, when I felt like it was time."

"The heart’s desire is expressed in blood."

"The inevitable only exists through lack of intervention."

"The first thing on my to-do list is to make a to-do list."

"Some people play hard to get; I play hard to want."

"I don’t love myself; I have other people do that for me."

"Jesus never walked on water, but he was always on thin ice."

"The only thing I would do different is more of the same."

"The rich don’t start revolutions."

"Evolution doesn’t work on creationists."

"Every teardrop returns to a cloud."

"Absinthe makes the mind go wander."

"I’m complicated, not confused."

"It’s not God I fear but the woman who bore him."

"What you believe is without a clue. What I believe is always true."

"A shadow never sees the sun."

"If questioning something endangers its existence, extinction is probably in its future."

"Some days you can’t see the forest for the fire."

"Nothing is true until someone believes."

"Education prepares the next generation for life and debt."

"No one should possess more than they can hold in their heart."

"You’re guaranteed a past, but not a future."

"The trivial travels faster than the profound."

"Myths are the unbelievable truth."

"Memories forever remake themselves."

"Evolution is a two-way street."

"It’s not the size of the brush; it’s the expanse of the imagination."

"Adversity is the mother of contention."

"A stream of consciousness leads to an ocean of revelations."

"Holding something sacred stunts its evolution."

"Only the evaporated ascend."

"The water I breathe would drown the more evolved."

"You are the dreams of your ancestors."

"You can’t remember what you never forgot."

"When all else fails, start a band."