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

> People have asked me why — if meditation is so great and gives you so much bliss — are my films so dark, and there's so much violence?
>
> There are many, many dark things flowing around in this world right now, and most films reflect the world in which we live. They're stories. Stories are always going to have conflict. They're going to have highs and lows, and good and bad.
>
> I fall in love with certain ideas. And I am where I am. Now, if I told you I was enlightened, and this is enlightened filmmaking, that would be another story. But I'm just a guy from Missoula, Montana, doing my thing, going down the road like everybody else.
>
> We all reflect the world we live in. Even if you make a period film, it will reflect your times. You can see the way period films differ, depending on when they were made. It's a sensibility — how they talk, certain themes — and those things change as the world changes.
>
> And so, even though I'm from Missoula, Montana, which is not the surrealistic capital of the world, you could be anywhere and see a kind of strangeness in how the world is these days, or have a certain way of looking at things.

- 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: 91
- 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/people-have-asked

## 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)