People always ask me what I'm doing on the subway, but I love it! Sometimes I like to ride in the front car and look out the window at the rats.

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.

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.

Well cult is a word you would never say in Hollywood. In any film business, if you're trying to get your next film made, you would never say, "Oh, my last film was a cult film." I'd say, "Oh great, well I hope this one isn't!"

I could never kill myself. I approve of suicide if you have horrible health. Otherwise it's the ultimate hissy fit.

There is still such a thing as subversive. Subversive makes hip people nervous. It's something new that scares you in a good way. I mean, subversive to me is a compliment. Subversive is something that influences people to do something against society that they haven't thought of before.

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.