If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.

An idea is a thought. It's a thought that holds more than you think it does when you receive it. But in that first moment there is a spark.

It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes, for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It's the piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It's a hopeful puzzle piece.

Desire for an idea is like bait. You bait your hook, and then you wait. The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in — those ideas.

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.

The idea just needs to be enough to get you started, because whatever follows is a process of action and reaction. It's always a process of building and then destroying. And then, out of this destruction, discovering a thing and building on it.

You feel-think your way through. You start one place, and as you go, it gets more and more finely tuned. But all along it's the idea talking.

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

— David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish