Top 349 Quotes & Sayings by John Waters - Page 6

Pot came first when I was young. But I did the work. It wasn't a battle of what came first. They went together like "love and marriage, horse and carriage!"

The good guys in my movies mind their own business and they don't judge other people. And the bad guys are jealous, they judge other people without knowing the whole story, they want all the attention and they're mean spirited. So I think my films are politically correct in a weird way.

I've always tried to keep reinventing myself and to keep appealing to young people and when I go to colleges now and do my spoken-word show it's astounding to me how I get older and the audience gets younger. To me, that's the best compliment. That's better than money, that's better than anything.

I think social justice is important. I think it's not fair.

Everyone wants to be called an outsider so I'm a proud insider. If I was young I'd be in my parents' house shutting down the government on my computer. The new delinquent is the hacker.

I went to a Catholic high school, which, to this day, I could burn down. And I got great revenge because they had their fiftieth anniversary, andThe Baltimore Sun called me and said, ‘What did you think of your high school?’ And I said, ‘They discouraged every interest I ever had.’ And I saw that in print.

I never rewatch the great films of my favorite directors because I'm afraid they won't hold up.

You see a kid making a film on a cell phone. He doesn't know what he's doing either. But it comes out kind of good.

I'll have pot in my home for guests - I'm polite! - but I don't sit around and smoke by myself, ever. Not like I did when I was young.

Humor is how you change people's opinions, and if you can make someone laugh, they'll listen, even if they hate you.

I used to joke that I was trying to sell out, and nobody would buy me.

New York was the last place that my movies caught on. I didn't make underground movies in New York, and in the 1960s, they were very snobby about that, because the whole scene was here.

Many hundred-million-dollar Hollywood comedies aren't any good. They're trying to shock you.

It was a mystery to me. To that awful black-and-white farm, with that aunt who was dressed badly, with smelly farm animals around when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn't get it.

I'd rather have a daughter in a whorehouse than a son in the police force,' Esther used to rage to anyone who would listen.

I must admit, even my fans everywhere I go in the world - just this week I was in London and Glasgow and the week before I was in Des Moines - my fans all look the same in all those cities - they look great!

I really didn't have any bad hitchhiking experiences. The only bad experiences were standing by the road for 10 hours. I never thought I'd get a ride with a ministers wife or a coalminer or a Republican elected official. It was all pleasant surprises. The only drag was the waiting.

I hate it when people say, I'm an artist. I think, well, I'll be the judge of that. And I don't think artist is a job description. It's a critique, a favorable critique, that someone else might apply to your work. I guess in the art world I'm not exactly a photographer, but I do use photography.

It isn't enough to shock. It's easy to shock. Real surprise is what I'm after.

Fifty years seems like a good anniversary. Even after I'm dead, how much better could I get than this? I mean, it's great, I'm not dead, so I get to see it.

If you're a parent, I tell you how to get through Christmas. I think that if you've ever had a bad feeling about Christmas coming, I'll tell you how to deal with it. So, I think in a way it's like going to a sane psychiatrist that actually gives you some good advice, I hope!

Yeah, I know I should be fighting for gay rights, but who wants to join the army or get married anyway?

It delights me to find something that kids are doing that surprises me that seems new. That's the best feeling you can have.

I think it's all independent films. There aren't any! If they were looking for me when I was making Polyester, then it'd be perfect, but they're not. I'm not looking for that. TV is much bigger and better now; far more people see it.

I tried heroin. I shot up in high school, but I just thought it was so dreary: puking and nodding.

Terrible things always seemed to happen to hitchhikers in movies - including my own. It has always been glamorous and dangerous and scary and sexy.

Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other.

I'm for gay marriage. I don't want to do it, but I certainly think people should be allowed to, and I wouldn't vote for anybody that would be against it. But at the same time, why do we have to be good now? Why can't we be villains in movies?

What's fascinating to me is that in rich-kid schools, it's better to be gay. No one is discriminated against because they're gay in a rich-kid school. But in poor-kid schools, it's often not the same. So being gay is a class issue now.

I think Chelsea Girls is a complete masterpiece and I think Andy's [Warhol] films are equally as good as the art. I think one day they will be considered equal. They aren't yet. They will be.

I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush? "Axis of Evil"? Come on. "A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain" is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even.

If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn't funny. That's what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do ; try to be shocking and dirty.

No matter what your sexual preference or gender, no one likes a man who is fussy about his looks. You can spend as much time as you want looking good. But don`t do it in public.

It's time now to rent a car, roll down the windows and prepare for your first big thrill: the freeways. They're so much fun they should charge admission. Never fret about zigzagging back and forth through six lanes of traffic at high speeds; it erases jet lag in a split second. You're now heading toward Hollywood, like any normal tourist. Breathe in that smog and feel lucky that only in L.A. will you glimpse a green sun or a brown moon. Forget the propaganda you've heard about clean air; demand oxygen you can see in all its glorious discoloration.

And I seek people who break rules with happiness — and not bringing pain to themselves.

I hitchhiked at high school. My parents thought was a perfectly normal thing to do even though God knows I got blown a lot of times riding home from school.

Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.

I always give books. And I always ask for books. I think you should reward people sexually for getting you books. Don't send a thank-you note, repay them with sexual activity. If the book is rare or by your favorite author or one you didn't know about, reward them with the most perverted sex act you can think of. Otherwise, you can just make out.

I'm an old person because I still buy DVDs. I have every one of my albums and 45s - I even have a couple of 33s and I do have a turntable. But I must admit, I don't listen to vinyl today. But I listen to all types of music.

I mean, what is prison, really, except a good bar without the liquor?

The only way I've learned to change anyone's mind politically is to make them laugh. My whole career has been about that.

Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone.

I make a great part of my living by traveling and speaking. To me, it's like being a politician, you meet your audience, you constantly see the people and they're getting younger for me which is really, really encouraging. I get older and my audience gets younger. It couldn't be better.

Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.

I came from a generation where women were almost deified, and like Groucho Marx's line, "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member", I thought, "I wouldn't want to sleep with a woman who would sleep with me!" It took me a long time to work my way through that.

I have spoken, and I was understood. It's not like I'm a tragic person who wasn't understood. All those books are in print, all those movies are still out there, the audience gets younger. So I don't have that "I've got to do one thing before I die." I did it.

Not wanting anyone to pop my bubble by speaking to me, I immediately began reading Lesbian Nuns, and that did the trick. No one attempted small talk.

I like the word 'underground'... 'independent' carries a stigma of whininess. 'Underground' means a good time.

I love to read about anger. A "feel bad" book always makes me feel good. And no other novel in the history of literature is more depressing than Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children.