David Lynch, the enigmatic film-maker who revolutionized American cinema and television through his dark, surrealist vision, has died at the age of 78, less than a year after the lifelong smoker publicly revealed his struggles with emphysema.
Lynch forged an idiosyncratic career that bridged the experimental fringes and the mainstream. After a peripatetic, middle-class upbringing in the American mountain west, he studied painting and made several experimental short films before his cult-hit breakout, Eraserhead. His career – including the award-winning films Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive, as well as the landmark TV show Twin Peaks – earned him an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2019.
A consummate and prolific artist, Lynch worked furiously across mediums – he produced paintings, released albums (including collaborations with Lykke Li and Karen O), created a long-running YouTube weather report, opened a Paris nightclub, and co-authored a memoir. His final feature film, Inland Empire, was released in 2006. Here are some of his most memorable quotes:
On ideas:
They’re like fish. If you get an idea that’s thrilling to you, put your attention on it and these other fish will swim into it. It’s like a bait. They’ll hook on to it and you’ll get more ideas. And you just pull them in.
— to the Guardian, 2018
On translating ideas to screen:
It’s a feeling, more of an intuition. It’s the idea that you’ve fallen in love with, and you try to stay true to that. You see the way that cinema can say that idea, and it’s thrilling to you.
— to the Guardian, 2018
On mystery:
I don’t know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.
— to the Los Angeles Times, 1989
The big mystery is life as a human being … Life is filled with mysteries, just filled. Human beings, we’re like detectives. We like to think about these things, or I sure do, and we want answers. The secret is: the answers are there, and they also lie within. It’s all there for us. If we want to get it, we can get it.
— to the Guardian, 2024
Certain things are just so beautiful to me, and I don’t know why. Certain things make so much sense, and it’s hard to explain.
— to Chris Rodley for Lynch on Lynch, 1997
On absurdity and humor:
Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there’s humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd. But I don’t just find humor in unhappiness – I find it extremely heroic the way people forge on despite the despair they often feel.
— to the Los Angeles Times, 1989
On failure:
In a way failure is a beautiful thing, because when the dust settles there’s nowhere to go but up, and it’s a freedom. You can’t lose more, but you can gain.
— from Room to Dream, 2018
On success:
Success can screw you because you start worrying about falling and you can’t ever stay in the same place. That’s just the way it is. You should be thankful for successes, because people really loved something you did, but it’s all about the work.
— from Room to Dream, 2018
On visual language:
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.
— to the Guardian, 2018
On human potential:
Sublime eternal love is a possibility for human beings, and every human being should know that – it exists within each one of us.
— to the Guardian, 2024
On watching films:
I’m not a real film buff. Unfortunately, I don’t have time. I just don’t go. And I become very nervous when I go to a film because I worry so much about the director and it is hard for me to digest my popcorn.
— Cannes Film Festival press conference for Fire Walk With Me, 1992
On reviews:
The good ones aren’t good enough, and the bad ones will depress you.
— to the Guardian, 2018
On an artist’s life:
You gotta be selfish. And it’s a terrible thing. I never really wanted to get married, never really wanted to have children. One thing leads to another and there it is … I did what I had to do. There could have been more work done. There are always so many interruptions.
— to the Guardian, 2018
An artist’s life is very selfish. But it’s thrilling to create something, and you need a certain set-up for the process to take place. You can’t have a lot of obligations.
— in Room to Dream, 2018
On his reclusive lifestyle:
I like to make movies. I like to work. I don’t really like to go out.
— to the Guardian, 2018
