Quotes from David Lynch

If you stay true to your ideas, film-making becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process.

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

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.

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

Sometimes I get ideas for lyrics in anyplace, but I work a lot in the studio. So I collect little bits of lyrics. I go through the box of lyrics I have and see if something fits.

I'm not a musician, but I play music. So it's a strange thing.

Inside, we are ageless and when we talk to ourselves, it's the same age of the person we were talking to when we were little. It's the body that is changing around that ageless center.

You've got to let accidents and strange things happen - let it work, so it's got an organic sort of quality ... By trying to remove yourself you can see some fantastic things sometimes.

I let the actors work out their ideas before shooting, then tell them what attitudes I want. If a scene isn't honest, it stands out like a sore thumb.

A lot of artists think they want anger. But a real, strong, bitter anger occupies the mind, leaving no room for creativity.

Film can't just be a long line of bliss. There's something we all like about the human struggle.

I like things to be orderly.

I believe in creative control. No matter what anyone makes, they should have control over it.

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.

The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.

Transcendental meditation is like a car, a vehicle that allows you to go within. It's a mental technique.

Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see, one chance out between two worlds, fire walk with me!

In a Town like Twin Peaks noone is innocent

I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it.

The house is a place where things can go wrong.

New mysteries. New day. Fresh doughnuts.

The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it's a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they'll hook onto it. Then you're on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire.

You're right on the money with that. We're all like detectives in life. There's something at the end of the trail that we're all looking for.

Within your own self is a treasury, an ocean of pure bliss, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, love, happiness, energy, and peace… within every human being. Experience that and you will begin to know yourself, which is unbounded, eternal totality