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

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?

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

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

And you must not worry about me. You must follow your dreams. You have your life ahead of you. I am just a wanderer passing by.

Creativity is a basic biological drive to engage in meaningful conversations with ourselves & the world around us.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

Grandma cheated whenever she could. She cheated because it was a much more scientific and surer way of winning than trusting to luck.

I'm very much a family person.

My brother is an agent, so he is in the business. Is he my agent? No, no, no. That would never work.

Many people think I'm a television personality. I never have been! Just someone who acts it.

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

To learn anything, you must put aside the safety of your ignorance.

I liked writing, and I loved movies, obsessively loved movies, but I had never made the leap of thinking I would actually come out here and write stuff.