‘Twin Peaks’: David Lynch quotes for a creative life

A master of surrealism, David Lynch is very much the king of the absurd. In an effort to capture the Lynchian zeitgeist, we’ve gathered a list of the auteur’s greatest bits of wisdom, as well as dialogue from some of our most beloved Twin Peaks characters.

Wally Brando: “My family, my friend, I have crisscrossed this great land of our countless times. I hold a map of it here, in my heart next to the joyful memories of the carefree days I spent as a young boy here in your beautiful town of Twin Peaks.

“From Alexandria, Virginia to Stockton, California. I think about Lewis and his friend Clark, the first Caucasians to see this part of the world; their footsteps have been the highways and byways of my days on the road.

“My shadow is always with me, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes to the left or sometimes to the right. Except on cloudy days or at night.”

Sheriff Frank Truman: “Yes, well, Wally, it’s great to see you again. And may the road rise up to meet your wheels.”

Wally Brando: “That’s a lovely turn of phrase. Thank you. (pause) My dharma is the road; your dharma, .”

—Twin Peaks, Season 3

Bobby Briggs: “Norma, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

Norma Jennings: “Not if I see you first.”

—Twin Peaks, Season 1

“I’m Audrey Horne and I get what I want.”

—Audrey Horne, Twin Peaks, Season 2

“The heart—it is a physical organ, we know. But how much more an emotional organ—this we also know. Love, like blood, flows from the heart. Are blood and love related? Does a heart pump blood as it pumps love? Is love the blood of the universe?”

—Margaret Lanterman “Log Lady”, Twin Peaks, Season 2

“There’s nothing quite like urinating in the open air.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks, Season 2

“Black has depth… you can go into it… And you start seeing what you’re afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.”

—David Lynch, Lynch on Lynch

“I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.”

—David Lynch

“Diane! I’m holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“You know, this is—excuse me—a damn fine cup of coffee.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“Keep your eye on the doughnut, not the hole.”

—David Lynch

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in a men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black, coffee.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“Bobby, may I share something with you? A vision I had in my sleep last night—as distinguished from a dream which is mere sorting and cataloging of the day’s events by the subconscious. This was a vision, fresh and clear as a mountain stream—the mind revealing itself to itself.”

—Major Briggs, Twin Peaks, Season 2

“Through the darkness of future’s past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds… fire… walk with me.”

—One-Armed Man, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“Fellas don’t drink that coffee! You’d never guess, there was a fish… in the percolator. Sorry.”

—Pete Martell, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Season 1

“I only have time for coffee.”

—Special Agent Dale Cooper, Season 1

“Sheriff, I’m going to transfer it to the phone on the table by the red chair. The red chair against the wall. The little table with the lamp on it. The lamp we moved from the corner? The black phone, not the brown phone.”

—Lucy Moran, Twin Peaks, Season 1

“I guess I’m not so interested in how my bike looks as in where it can take me.”

—James Hurley, Twin Peaks, Season 2

“Cotton balls! By God, those things will be quiet now.”

—Nadine Hurley, Season 1