Some of these agendas wanted me to quit, very simply, so they said "we have all the guarantees if you want to leave, and all the money and everything you want. " Of course, you just ignore that.
. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.