David Lynch Quotes

When I make a movie, I just make the movie. I don't think about the success of it. If it becomes successful, that's an amazing treat. If it doesn't, you had a great time making it and you learned from it, and then you make a new thing.

When I made my first film, it was just an adventure. But after my first movie, I guess I got more of a feeling of what was happening around me.

When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important. It's hard to understand failure when you're going through it, but in the grand scheme of things it's good to fall down - not because you're drunk and not near stairs.

I'm still trying to learn how to do it, I'm still trying to figure out how to make films, but, yeah, it started then [in 1979].

I think making movie is kind of like getting fat people to walk 20 miles. If you just do it 100 yards at a time, and nobody knows how far they are going, they can do it!I would include myself in those fat people! You do this little by little and you don't realize your potential, or you don't realize how really rich, and how far you can go.

Personally I have a great deal of fun doing it, which is an inspiration in itself really. It really allows me to daydream, as in "schooldream" which is daydreaming with ink and get paid for it which is something I don't say to schools when I go in and talk to them.

Making a film, you're in a really dark tunnel and the only kind of illumination is the shared experience you're having with your fellow cast and director.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.

Get to know your characters as well as you can let there be something at stake, and then let the chips fall where they may.

When I was in my 20s I wasn't sure of myself. Now I can really stretch. I don't have to stay in the box. At this point I can say to myself, So what if I fall, so what? I'm going to get back up.

If you can't fail then how can you possible develop as a communicator or as a creator of anything? We are locked into a deeply unhealthy notion that somehow you've got to succeed all the time. An appalling notion. Any painter or writer will tell you that that is no way to proceed. One of the things that will kill off a decent actor, especially a young actor early on and they will never recover from it, is too much success. It's disastrous. You stop being criticized, therefore you stop challenging yourself. You then can't afford to fail because there's too far to fall.

I think I've had a fairly meandering career. Because I did start so young, I think that I've always chosen my parts based on what's interesting to me and what I think would be challenging or fun, or someone I've always wanted to work with or a place I've always wanted to work in or a topic.

In my lifetime, I may have put too much emphasis on winning, because here I am an old man and the only fun I've had is winning, and that's ridiculous.

I don't think there's anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards - in the life of an artist.

A lot of actors lack confidence - even if you're doing really well, you kind of feel like this might be your last job. I enjoy the feeling of, "Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew," and then working really, really hard and thinking, "Wow, I like that. I did that." Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who jumps out of planes and enjoys bungee jumping or anything like that, but I definitely enjoy living quite spontaneously and going with the wind.

I want them [female fans] to not be afraid to live life, to not be afraid to make bad decisions because there are a lot of lessons and blessings in those decisions. Sometimes, if you don't fall into the pit, you won't reach out to God.

Every once in a while you just have to decide to do something very crazy and very right--just to dare yourself to live. I don't mean doing something stupid and destructive--just something fun and good and beautiful.

I want to do a good job. I'm just learning and I just want to have fun with it.

It's never fun to be scared [about stage fright] but I think that it is important and it's healthy to always push yourself.

I think that ultimately what drives my decisions is if I think the opportunity is going to challenge me in a way that makes me better as an actor.

I did. I still do. It's kind of grown to a "Ren and Stimpy" kind of lab, which is fun.

A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.

It was easy and fun [filming in Hail, Caesar!], and I think it's easy to be intimidated by the Coen brothers, because they're quiet. They don't heap praise, especially upon themselves. It's not like they're walking around thinking they're the greatest thing on Earth.

Now I don't care what people think. I did some internet campaign where I was the voice of a puppet for Ford Focus ads because they were paying me a lot of money to do it, it was a very easy gig, but then the bonus was, it turned out to be an enormous amount of fun. I've learned not to turn my nose up at things just because they're not what other people might consider cool to do. Because I've also matured enough to know, you never know where these things are going to lead, and you never know what the experience is going to be like.

I think of myself as a serious artist. Sometimes you can get in your head too much about that and forget that you have to have fun. I've been guilty in my career about that at times. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I didn't want anybody else to have a hit with it!