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.

Even illegal weapons have lost their panache. Zip guns and shanks were at least homemade. Where is the craft in a grade-schooler firing a magnum? What is the world coming to? It's not even bad to be a communist anymore!

I wish something on T.V. would trouble me. Then maybe I would watch it.

When they throw the water on the witch, she says, “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness”. That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.

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.

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.

When I started my goal was to make a successful underground movie. I started making movies in the mid-60s. Underground cinema then only lasted about two or three years.