For the most part, studio movies have huge budgets. They don't do anything under 30 to 40 million. When you have that much money at stake, you have so many people breathing down your neck.

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.

I actually picked up copies of Decline I and II at a flea market once. I walked out without paying.

I got IRS records to finance what I wanted to do.

I like to think about society as being a flock of birds: There seems to be a common consciousness in different time periods, and the new common consciousness reacts to the old standards.

I was always into music. I think everyone is when they're a teenager, as a way to drown out the world.

I really feel kind of guilty spending 80 million dollars. People are starving in the world.

Nobody wanted to touch Decline III when they found out what it was about.

Arnold and Jamie Lee must have worked over the years with directors that did 50 takes, because I'd get like three takes or so and say, Ok, that's it, we're done.

Decline III, I funded myself, from the studio money. That, and I sold a lot of drugs. Kidding. Don't print that.

I live on this nice three acres in Hollywood.

It is only when people don’t know history well that they judge the present so blindly in ignorance!

The past looks worse the closer you look at it.

i'm in love with every creature on earth.. i don't want nobody to suffer, because i can feel the pain from all of them.. and i want to gave them love.. every creature on earth...

What the culture of get rich quick does to our people is the escapist mentality becomes prevalent, giving birth to the syndrome of economic refugees.

I was a government employee in the morning and a writer in the evening.

And seemingly as winter has become spring, confusion has become insight.

It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.

I planned to stop in 2002 after the Salt Lake City Olympics. I felt able to remain competitive another four years, and I wanted to stop while I'm still at the top.

When traveling abroad if you see something you yearn for if you can afford it at all, buy it. If you don't you'll regret it all your life.

No one would argue against the fact that L.A. leads the country in opportunities for being hip and pretentious.