When I started making movies about weird people, I knew they were weird, I was infected with irony, and I wanted New York to notice.

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.

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

The further away I am from water, the less well I do!

Insider can be more ludicrous. How did I ever end up [as one]? Carsick [Waters's book on hitchhiking] was on the New York Times best-seller list for five weeks. [One of the characters was] a singing asshole that does a duet with Connie Francis! Times have changed. That's mainstream, in a weird way.

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

When I was young, no one wanted to be one; now even the President of the United States would call himself an outsider. So now I'm for insiders.