Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.

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.

I’ve had enough of this destiny bullshit, OK?

I didn't panic until my chest collapsed and I couldn't breathe. I gasped until I no longer had a throat to do it with. I didn't feel like I was holding my breath - it was more like I had no lungs.

The universe is in fact a multiverse.

If there is any truth to my parenting the dreamwork movement, it comes from the power of the press.

Fans always ask, What did the bedroom look like? All they ever saw was Alice or Ralph going in and out.

Almost everything I've done, I've done through my own creativity.

When it ceases to be fun, I'll stop and just stay in my restaurants.

Give yourself permission to be happy. It doesn't matter what's going on around you, what matters is what's going on inside you.

Texas can make it without the United States, but the United States cannot make it without Texas

The material dictates the approach. I tell the stories in the way that feels natural to tell them. Certainly the last thing I want is to be "difficult."