"I suppose I am gently cynical about notions of who we think we are, but I certainly don't hate my fellow man. I think my cinema, although it might often deal with death and decay, is highly celebratory."

"I was born on the 5th April 1942. On Good Friday. Round about crucifixion time. Archbishop Ussher, a man for dates, who calculated that the world began on September 27th 4004 BC, says the crucifixion took place at three o'clock in the afternoon on Good Friday in the year 33 AD. I was right on time."

"If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does he think of in the other eight?"

"The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric."

"A really intelligent man makes an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness, a partial refusal to be aware of all the options..."

"I made a very bad mistake; I miscounted these scraps of information on the record as 92, and in continual homage to this man who had been so influential to me, I began creating or constructing my own films on this so-called "magic" number of 92 ... but when I eventually made a film about John Cage and met him, I explained this to him, and he found it very amusing because there are only 90 stories on the two sides of the record, and I'd based three years of my filmic career on this mathematical error!"