John Waters Quotes

It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.

Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.

My idea of an interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a career.

True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.

Without obsession, life is nothing.

[My catholic education] sticked with me. It caused the rage I had to make 'Pink Flamingos.'

Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.

Do we secretly idolize our imagined opposites, yearning to become the role models for others we know we could never be for ourselves?

The "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" hitchhiker really made people never want to hitchhike again - the hitcher, the show. Hitchhiking is always vaguely sexual.

I like hard movies; I like ones that are basically the opposite of a date movie.

I could never kill myself. I approve of suicide if you have horrible health. Otherwise it's the ultimate hissy fit.

I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.

People vomitied at my movies; not because of the movie but because they were drunk. I took credit anyway.

Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.

There was a cultural war going on, the '60s was going on. All the film critics were square.

Hitchhiking, intrinsically, is sexual and dangerous. At the same time I never really felt scared. I was scared that nobody would pick me up and that I'd be waiting by the side of the road for a week.

You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.

To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.

If you can make someone laugh who's dead set against you, that's the first step to winning them over to your side.

I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn't let me.

I respect everything I make fun of.

Wouldn't you rather your kid be a drug dealer than a drug addict?

I'm here today because of LSD. LSD gave me the confidence to be who I am today. Completely.

I built a career on negative reviews. I didn't get a good review ever until Fran Lebowitz gave me a good review in Interview. That was the first good review I got in 10 years.

To me, racist jokes are not funny. I am politically correct, in a weird way. I like to push the boundaries that are politically correct.

Stop blaming your parents. If you're really angry at 60 years old, you're an idiot! You've got to work some of it out.

And my little sister Chrissy, for teaching me that life is nothing if you're not obsessed.

I don't trust anyone that hasn't been to jail at least once in their life.

My films can be considered political action against the tyranny of good taste.

Life is a rotten lottery.

I always say you need something weird on your face and some good shoes and nobody looks in the middle.

I want to be harder to reach, not easier.

I'm thrilled to have a completely new audience that I can get from Court TV, without it being my own trial. That was the only other way I would have gotten it.

If you're not sure you could love your children, please don't have them, because they might grow up and kill us.

...Don't let me ever hear you say, 'I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.' Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of 'literature'? That means fiction, too, stupid.

Contemporary art hates you.

When I started my goal was to make a successful underground movie. I started making movies in the mid-60s. Underground cinema then only lasted about two or three years.

My hobby is extreme Catholic behavior - before the Reformation.

"How could you think of such awful things?" liberal critics always ask. "How else could I possibly amuse myself?" I always wonder.

Some call me director, producer, filmmaker. I prefer to call myself pube-king.

To me, beauty is looks you can never forget. A face should jolt, not soothe.

As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don't have any.

Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?

People always ask me what I'm doing on the subway, but I love it! Sometimes I like to ride in the front car and look out the window at the rats.

Censorship has been my best press agent my whole life.

The only time I had a normal boyfriend was during the time of AIDS, so maybe that saved me. It's certainly not karma.

I never had any desire to get a tattoo. If I was ever going to get one, I would get a plain anchor with a rope around it, the most unimaginative possible tattoo, like Popeye had.

I'm the smartest at 8 A.M. I wake up at 6, drink three cups of Awake Tazo Tea and read five newspapers. I have to think up something every day, Monday to Friday.

I get dumber as the day goes along. Every second of the day that goes along, I get stupider.

Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership.