I've always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system.

The thing that scares me is a place like the Amazon - which is the size of the continental U.S. and mostly unexplored and has a different ecosystem, there are so many things in there that can kill you.

I've been having a lot of fun exploring different aspects of filmmaking, like writing and producing. There isn't a specific plan and I usually don't know what's going to be the next thing I do.

Not knowing the thing that's chasing you is a lot scarier than seeing it right in front of you.

The surrealists, and the modern movement in painting as a whole, seemed to offer a key to the strange postwar world with its threat of nuclear war. The dislocations and ambiguities, in cubism and abstract art as well as the surrealists, reminded me of my childhood in Shanghai.

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

Work is the opposite of creativity.

I resisted children's writing for a long time. I saw myself as a writer of literary fiction. But I had so much more fun writing kids' books.