# Quote — David J. Lynch, Catching the Big Fish

> I started out just as a regular person, growing up in the Northwest. My father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, studying trees. So I was in the woods a lot. And the woods for a child are magical. I lived in what people call small towns. My world was what would be considered about a city block, maybe two blocks. Everything occurred in that space. All the dreaming, all my friends existed in that small world. But to me it seemed so huge and magical. There was plenty of time available to dream and be with friends.
>
> I liked to paint and I liked to draw. And I often thought, wrongly, that when you got to be an adult, you stopped painting and drawing and did something more serious.

- Author: [David J. Lynch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch.md)
- Book: [Catching the Big Fish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish.md)
- Page: 9
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Lynch#Catching_the_Big_Fish_(2006)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish/i-started-out

## More from this book

> When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn't even curious. It sounded like a waste of time.
>
> What got me interested, though, was the phrase "true happiness lies within." At first I thought it sounded kind of mean, because it doesn't tell you where the "within" is, or how to get there. But still it had a ring of truth. And I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within.

p. 3 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish/when-i-first.md)

> When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt a sense of depression and anger.
>
> I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, "What's going on?" I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "This anger, where did it go?" And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted.
>
> I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom.
>
> Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they are like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They are like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.

p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish/when-i-started.md)

> On Blue Velvet, I worked with a casting director, Johanna Ray. And we had all brought up Dennis Hopper. But everybody said, 'No, no; you can't work with Dennis. He's really in bad shape, and you'll have nothing but trouble.' So we continued looking for people. But one day, Dennis' agent called and said that Dennis was clean and sober and had already done another picture, and I could talk to that director to verify it. Then Dennis called and said, 'I have to play Frank, because I am Frank.' That thrilled me, and scared me.

p. 69 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish/on-blue-velvet.md)