Top 349 Quotes & Sayings by John Waters - Page 3

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

The first real thing was Divine as Jackie Kennedy [in Eat Your Makeup]. His mother found the bloody Jackie Kennedy outfit in the boot of his car and said, 'What is this?" and Divine said, "I am Jackie Kennedy!" His mother just changed the subject; she didn't know what to say.

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

I liked speed. I was on black beauties all the time. Nothing bad happened to me. I didn't become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie. We weren't stoned when we made them; I was stoned when I made movies up. I did them all.

I don't know how I made those movies. I went out every single night, I smoked pot every single day. I drank. We did everything, but I never became a drug addict or an alcoholic. Other friends are dead, many of them. So many people in this retrospective...in Female Trouble, almost everyone is dead.

Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger.

I haven't changed - the public has. I'm an insider now, which is hilarious.

Just make sure your children hate authority and they'll do fine.

I learned that people like my work because I praise things that others don't like.

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.

Watching a movie should be like hunting. Out of context, every image of the cinema is yours for a split second. Take them before they bury it.

If you ever go home with somebody and they don't have books in their house, don't sleep with them. I think that's very important.

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

I understand why people want to look up their friends - usually they want to see what people they've wanted to have sex with look like.

People still come to Baltimore and say, "I didn't realize you made documentaries."

So many great people are dead, and so many assholes I know are still alive. Karma's bullshit. I wish it was true, but it ain't.

You have to remember the police used to raid and arrest the audience for seeing Scorpio Rising (1964), or Jack Smith movies. Wouldn't that be exciting today, if you see went to the movie and everyone at the IFC was arrested in a paddy wagon and taken away?

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

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 like rap music. But bragging about being rich to poor people is really offensive. I want to hear a rap song about buying a Cy Twombly painting or dating a museum curator. I want to hear about that kind of rich.

The selfie has become a new autograph, but it takes twice as long to do as a real autograph. I do it because I'm like, "What am I going to do, these people bought me my house." Why am I not going to take a picture with them except I always say, "You have to hold it up! Shoot down or it's really ugly if you shoot up!" So not only does it take longer, you have to teach them camera angles.

The Easter Bunny is a major reason for heroin addiction in America.

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

The way I photograph... in many ways it's directed by chance and all my mistakes, which are often the best stuff. I found that no matter if it's the same tape, the same TV, and the same camera, I can never duplicate an image... your arm jiggles, there's just too much chance. And I never put it on pause, or use any of that fancy equipment.

I want to be harder to reach, not easier.

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

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

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 what you get. But you've got to deal with it.

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

I can't tell the difference between the best and the worst 'cause I realize not everybody wants to have sex in the middle of a demolition derby race in the car.

I think that in America there is a new movement of underground movies that wants to kick the ass of independent films that they think whine too much.

No comedy should be longer than 90 minutes. There's no such thing as a good long joke.

I'm perpetual tourist, and that's the best way to travel. Nobody gets used to you, you make new friends without having to hear anyone's everyday problems, and you jet back still feeling like a know-it-all.

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

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.

People that pick up hitchhikers I believe are basically good people that believe in other people and understand problems and don't judge people. That's always the kind of person I'm looking for.

There is still such a thing as subversive. Subversive makes hip people nervous. It's something new that scares you in a good way. I mean, subversive to me is a compliment. Subversive is something that influences people to do something against society that they haven't thought of before.

To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.

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.

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

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 would never do hard-core pornography, because it looks too much like open-heart surgery.

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

How come there's no terrorism with humor, which is a great way to humiliate your enemy? It's a great time for that.

I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.

I'm trying to do of a certain attitude in life. I'm against separatism. I'm for everyone to gather. I'm for everyone lunatic to hang out together. I want to hear somebody else's bad night, not just mine.

Anytime you make someone laugh or satirize something, it's the best way to change someone's opinion because they're defenseless - they laugh, they listen.

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

I think it's important to visit people in prison. And if you know anyone in prison, I would encourage you very much to visit them. They're a good audience! I always get good letters from prisoners. I don't usually answer them because I have a lot going on in my life, but I get some really good ones, I get some really good letters from prison.

With Hairspray, we had a great experience. I always think of the last time I saw Divine: He was in the last booth in the back of the Odeon. Now every time I go in there, I look at that table. It was a wonderful night.Hairspray had been out a week; it was a hit. If I had to pick a night that was going to be the last night.

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

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

I love radical theorists. But at the same time, I don't agree with them a lot, but I love their theories. I love how they intellectualize rage, and this inner battle that such a tiny percent of people really care about. I find that the most interesting.

I've bought the same used car from the same man since I was 16 - a Buick every time. They always work, I don't care what color it is. I don't want people to recognize my car in case I want to commit a crime.

I'm a film director. Gay is an adjective that I certainly am, but I don't know that it's my first one. I think if you're just a gay filmmaker, you get pigeonholed just like if you say I'm a black filmmaker, I'm a Spanish filmmaker, I'm a whatever.

I go to colleges all the time in America, and everyone's gay, and I think how can this be? And it's only in rich schools. In poor schools, nobody's gay.

I always want to see films that are startling and amazing. Not just shocking. Shocking is easy to do. But startling in the way that makes you change how you think about things. Those are the movies I like the best.

Once I had a shrink who said, "Your parents are the fuel you run on," because I was raised in the tyranny of good taste. If my parents hadn't taught me all that, I couldn't have made fun of it. So I thank them, and they were loving. It takes a long time to realize that they made me feel safe when I lived a life which was very not safe.