You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.

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

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.

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 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.

Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?

I have to talk about my movies. I have to give interviews to promote what I'm doing. But no one really knows my personal life. And if you don't have a personal life I feel bad for you.