I couch-surfed for years. But I always wanted to live in Baltimore; I still do. If I had to choose, it would always be Baltimore.

I always say you need something weird on your face and some good shoes and nobody looks in the middle.

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

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

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

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.

If you think someone's trying too hard, that's the worst thing they can do. To me, it's just desperate, never funny and never witty. It's kind of really old hat because just being shocking isn't enough. It has to change how you think about something. It has to startle you. It has to make you look at something and reconsider whether you're right. That's the whole point.