David Lynch Quotes

When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime. A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.

What a great time to be alive if you love the theater of the absurd!

you keep your eye on the donut not the hole.

I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.

Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.

Language is an evil thing, a very evil thing. And a force to be reckoned with.

I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.

There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery

We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.

Closure. I keep hearing that word. ... As soon as a show has a sense of closure, it gives you an excuse to forget you've seen the damn thing.

All the movies are about strange worlds that you can't go into unless you build them and film them. That's what's so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds.

Stay true to yourself. Let your voice ring out, and don’t let anybody fiddle with it.

It’s maybe impossible to escape (your own head), but I guess the secret is the prison cell just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and prettier and prettier and prettier.

The idea tells you everything. Lots of times I get ideas, I fall in love with them. Those ones you fall in love with are really special ideas. And, in some ways, I always say, when something's abstract, the abstractions are hard to put into words unless you're a poet. These ideas you somehow know. And cinema is a language that can say abstractions. I love stories, but I love stories that hold abstractions — that can hold abstractions. And cinema can say these difficult-to-say-in-words things. A lot of times, I don't know the meaning of the idea, and it drives me crazy. I think we should know the meaning of the idea. I think about them, and I tell this story about my first feature Eraserhead. I did not know what these things meant to me — really meant. And on that particular film, I started reading the Bible. And I'm reading the Bible, going along, and suddenly — there was a sentence. And I said, forget it! That's it. That's this thing. And so, I should know the meaning for me, but when things get abstract, it does me no good to say what it is. All viewers on the surface are all different. And we see something, and that's another place where intuition kicks in: an inner-knowingness. And so, you see a thing, you think about it, and you feel it, and you go and you sort of know something inside. And you can rely on that. Another thing I say is, if you go — after a film, withholding abstractions — to a coffee place — having coffee with your friends, someone will say something, and immediately you'll say “No, no, no, no, that's not what that was about.” You know? “This is what it was about.” And so many things come out, it's surprising. So you do know. For yourself. And what you know is valid.

It doesn't do any good to say, 'This is what it means.' When you are spoon fed a film, people instantly know what it is. I like films that leave room to dream.