“My family moved a lot as a kid. We started in Colorado, where I lived ...” — Gus Van Sant Quote

“My family moved a lot as a kid. We started in Colorado, where I lived for five years. We moved to Chicago for two years, to San Francisco for one year, Connecticut for seven, Oregon for a couple years, and then I went to school. So I was always moving, I'm still always moving.”

“Usually when I read something, first of all I'm looking for the story and then when I reread it, I'm sort of checking every part of it to see if every scene is necessary.”

“Free time keeps me going. It's just something that's always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.”

“Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.”

“Death Valley is really wide-open - it's bigger than Rhode Island - and it's less a part of California than an ungoverned territory, so there's lots of weird cops-and-robbers stuff going on.”

“It really wasn't about picking Chicago. I feel like Chicago picked me.”

“I was so intimidated by the thought of improvising back in the '80s when I was in Chicago. I think the opportunity only even came up once that I can recall, and I turned down the offer. It was to go improvise in some club in the suburbs or something. Good God, I couldn't think of anything more frightening than to get up there without a plan.”

“Restaurants in Chicago are seldom disappointing.”

“I have really fond memories of growing up in Chicago, and I always love going back. I still have a lot of really good friends from high school that I go to dinner with. It's kind of become a tradition when I go out there to do a show to give a few friends a call, tell some funny stories about high school and walk down memory lane.”

“I obviously spent a lot of time in New York City, and I loved it, but Chicago has a very different history than New York City does.”

“You know what they say about Chicago. If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes.”