This much I know

Getting a big movie off the ground is all about being hot, having clout. I tell myself increasingly, desperately, 'I'm still somebody, I still have power, I still count!' And then the financiers pull the plug or the studio doesn't return your call and you realise 'I don't count!' and you have to start again.

I don't think I'd do a Life of Allah. I'm not stupid. I've got a wife and three kids.

I can't accept life's limitations. My fantasies are a desperate bid to make the world more interesting than it really is. Making the film of Don Quixote is my life's ambition because it is essentially about me: the pig headedness of this man imagining what's not really there and blasting relentlessly on.

The best art comes out of pain. I've got enough pain for 10 great movies. Just write the damn cheque!

Drugs scare me. People thought my Python cartooning was the work of a druggie. My intake only amounted to, let's see... hash, pot, amyl nitrate, coke. But only once or twice.

Listen in on your brain when it's talking to itself. I have a drawer at home and I stuff pieces of paper with doodles and snippets of word-play on them. When I need inspiration, I wade through this pile of shit. The last thing I wrote? I was on the phone and I unconsciously wrote 'Tom Waits for no man' on a piece of paper and threw it in there. OK, it's not going to make a movie. But I've got some good stuff in there.

I was going to be a missionary. I went to university in America on a presbyterian scholarship. I was a right little zealot.

I'm a virtual filmmaker now. I talk about films, fantasise about them and describe them to money people and none of them happen. This last year, four film projects of mine have collapsed. It's not quite 'Why don't you get a proper job?', but I haven't made a movie since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1998. Lost in La Mancha was a hit movie that someone else made about me not making a movie.

Therapy is the worst thing a crazy person can do. Creative madness pays my mortgage, why talk it away?

Hello! is the new bible. I rate the Holy Bible as literature. It's a good read. And much of our common culture was based on biblical stories. We've lost that broad storytelling reference now. Our stories are based on celebrity lives. They are the new saints.

The English are losing their eccentricity. When I came, there was Ivor Cutler, Spike Milligan, Ken Campbell. That's why I came. I thought, 'Here's a society which can celebrate its weirdos and even put them on TV.'

Money shows its true value when it disappears.

I'm a selfish, spoilt bastard. I'm so wrapped up in my world. I always leave my wife and kids to go alone on holidays at the last minute because there's a chance I might get another film off the ground.

I'm always surprised when people can't see what I see. It's me dealing with my own demons.

I've never hit anyone. I hit things. Six weeks into the shoot for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, we'd spent all the money. There was another six weeks to go. The completion guarantor arrived on the set in Spain to find out what was happening. He was threatening to sue me for everything I owned including our house. I screamed at him and I was dragged away. Downstairs in the car park I lost it and punched a hole through a car windscreen. I calmed down when I realised it was my car. Violence never pays.

At home I live frugally because I never want to get a proper job. We have a house in Italy. I fly there Ryanair. That's £23.50 out and £2.50 back. But for business the studio is flying me to LA first-class. That's over £3,000.

My memory is going. I brush my teeth and then 10 minutes later I go back and have to feel the toothbrush. Is it wet? Did I just brush them? This whole mind that you've built up over years is developing moth holes.

I feel I can do things no one else can do. I just haven't made enough films yet.

Selling out is a good pick-me-up. Last year, I was really depressed and thought 'I'll never make another movie again'. So I took very big money to make a Nike ad, the one that gave Elvis another hit record. I just wanted to get behind a camera again.

At home I'm just this guy who works upstairs and is late down for dinner.

· Jabberwocky is out now on DVD.