John Waters

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”

“I've had it with being nice, understanding, fair and hopeful. I feel like being negative all day. The chip on my shoulder could sink the QE2. I've got an attitude problem and nobody better g...”

“Our assholes will be clean but we must never wash our hands. Our immune systems will be strengthened by our being dirty. Not filthy. Just mildly grimy. Filthy fingernails have always been a...”

“A psychiatrist once told me early in treatment, “Stop trying to make me like you,” and what a sobering and welcome smack in the face that statement was. Yet somehow, every day of my life is...”

“Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“[W]hat I like best is staying home and reading. Being rich is not about how many homes you own. It’s the freedom to pick up any book you want without looking at the price and wondering wheth...”

“Life is a rotten lottery. I've had a pretty amazing life, a good life, and God knows I'm thankful, but I do believe that after 30, stop whining! Everybody's dealt a hand, and it's not fair w...”

“I believe if you come out of a movie and the first thing you say is, 'The cinematography was beautiful,' it's a bad movie.”

“I went through different looks. At one period, I was preppy because that's how I grew up. But then I had bleached hair in the front. And I used to wear - then I wanted to be a beatnik. It wa...”

“People looked at my early pictures and called them the most disgusting things ever, and now 'Hairspray' is being done at every school in Britain and America.”

“Bergman movies were the most influential. They used to show at Goucher University, which was where my parents used to live. 'Brink of Life' was the first one I ever saw. Three pregnant women...”

“My biggest fear in life is living Nativity scenes. I hide in cars and drive around looking at them. Something about it is really scary to me. What parent would put their child in there with...”

“Liberal censors are the worst. I don't remember any trouble with 'Serial Mom' or 'Cecil B. Demented' or any of them. Except 'Cry Baby.'”

“My mother's brother became the undersecretary of the interior for Nixon, which did cause a little drama in my family because I was going to riots and everything, but he turned out great and...”

“My 40th birthday I held in an old-age home. My 50th I had at Pravda before it opened in New York. My 60th I had at Pastis. For my 70th, I thought, 'I don't need to have a celebrity party thi...”

“Putting out compilation records, buying the right to music is incredibly complicated. You have to find the writer of the song and the publisher of the song - not the singer - and make two se...”

“On airplanes, strangers confide in me the most deepest, darkest secrets. And I think they think I'll understand. And I generally do understand.”