I actually think that my films are intellectual. I think almost everything I do is intellectual, but I would never say that, because that's a compliment. That's up to others to say about me. The same way, I would never say I do art. I think art is up to history. It's up to other people to utter that word. So I try to be humble.

I went to the Vatican once - it was a bad idea. I went into the bookshop and I bought hideous, pious postcards and then I asked for a receipt, and the nun said, "We don't give receipts at the Vatican." Which threw me into a rage of like, "I guess not, so you can take this money and funnel it into anti-homosexual groups!" People had to drag me out of there. It's not good for me to go into the Vatican.

I always feel bad when I meet celebrities and I can just tell every single thing about their personal life, I just say, "Well, they don't have friends. Or a therapist." Once you have both, you don't have to share everything with people, because then you don't have a private life, and then you're, I guess, a workaholic.

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.

I went to a Catholic high school, which, to this day, I could burn down. And I got great revenge because they had their fiftieth anniversary, andThe Baltimore Sun called me and said, ‘What did you think of your high school?’ And I said, ‘They discouraged every interest I ever had.’ And I saw that in print.

I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave!

I can't tell the difference between the best and the worst 'cause I realize not everybody wants to have sex in the middle of a demolition derby race in the car.