Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn't mean just a small happiness. It's huge. It is profound.

Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music.

I've loved music always, and my music fire was lit by Elvis Presley, really, and all that was happening back then.

If we didn't want to upset anyone, we would make films about sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film, it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience.

Most of Hollywood is about making money - and I love money, but I don't make the films thinking about money.

More and more people are seeing the films on computers - lousy sound, lousy picture - and they think they've seen the film, but they really haven't.

I love Christmas tree bulbs, and I started putting them in my paintings. You've got to plug this painting in, and it's got a rig in the back, so that each one can be replaced if it burns out.

I think part of the reason ideas haven't come in is that the world of cinema is changing so drastically, and in a weird way, feature films I think have become cheap. Everything is kind of throwaway. It's experienced and then forgotten.

See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of.

Digital video is so beautiful. It's lightweight, modern, and it's only getting better. It's put film into the La Brea Tar Pits.

Francis Bacon is one of my giant inspirations. I just love him to pieces.

I've always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal.

Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.

Everyone is on the internet but they're not all talking with each other. There are groups upon groups out there, but they don't talk to one another. So while the internet brings everyone into a shared space, it does not necessarily bring them together.

I like things to be orderly.

People think in Hollywood there's a family, where everybody gets together talks about stuff and we all know each other, and it's just not that way at all to me.

I didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.

I love the quality, feel and history of film. I love the pictures of the giant cameras and the way it was.

I was raised Presbyterian, but I'm not really going to church. I think the experience in meditation is pretty much where it's at for me.

I have no problem getting financing. I have a problem catching ideas that I fall in love with for the next feature.

Somehow, the French got this idea of the starving artist. Very romantic, except it's not so romantic for the starving artist.

Building a set is like building a place, but it's a temporary place, because sets usually get torn down. Kind of unfortunate.

To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.

Some things we forget. But many things we remember on the mental screen, which is the biggest screen of all.

I always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is my biggest influence. But for painters, I like many, many painters, but I love Francis Bacon the most, and Edward Hopper.

What I really like is to be at home, working.

The greatest thing my father left me was a love for cutting wood - my love for sawing, especially pine wood.

It will not get better than Sir Alex Ferguson. It just won't.

I had plenty of opportunities before I went to Spain to stay in England, and I had made a decision that I would go and work in Spain.

I would never have left Everton for anybody but an ambitious football club. And I thought Manchester United would have given me that opportunity.

I've always been quite strict when it comes to the appearance of my players. I don't want to see earrings in training, things like that.

The last thing I'd ever want to see is another manager being sacked. I certainly don't like the phrase 'sacking season.'

I watch a lot of football. It was always my hobby. My wife just sits there with a bored face, thinking, 'Is he really watching this?'

I don't think anyone ever turns down their national team opportunity, but I think it has to be at the right time.

I would never have left Everton if it hadn't been Manchester United.

I think retrospective viewing of diving is nearly more important than some of the technology they are on about bringing in. If you do that and players get banned, it wouldn't take long before you'd cut it out.

It's good that we have good managers like Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger in this countr,y but I think we should be trying to send out some of our managers to other countries to help not just the development of themselves but the leagues over here. It can enhance their careers.

Alan Shearer was tough, would be hard to play against, a difficult opponent.

I hope that the future is great for West Ham.

I would still consider myself in the elite group of managers. If it was me against someone else, I'd trust myself.

There is no club in Europe that wouldn't want Van Persie at centre-forward.

People often talk about a coach's philosophy, but generally, I think managers look at the players they have and then decide on their style.

I'm going to be direct with the players. If they don't like it, then I'm sorry.

At Everton, we have always tried to do good deals and have always tried to buy at the right age and the right price.

Real Sociedad fans are fantastic; they know that the club is trying to join the other teams who are always in the top part of the table - to get as close to them as possible.

I got Everton competing at the top end of the league with a midtable budget.

You're never going to go through a season with no injuries.

I was very fortunate that I had a great scouting staff at Everton from the academy, because it was those people who got the likes of Ross Barkley and Wayne Rooney when they were young.

I would never speak about players at other football clubs - I think it's wrong. It's not my style.

I was a young manager at Everton and had 11 great years there.