If you want to be an artist, go to every art gallery, if you want to be in movies, see movies! You have to participate in whichever world you're trying to enter! You have to know what's going on. You can be the best artist in the world but if you don't know one thing about which gallery to go to, you're never going to get it shown in the right place. Learn a little bit about the business of whichever art you're trying to get into. Without it, you will be lost.
John WatersI live in San Francisco, I live in Provincetown. They're all the same, apart from Baltimore. Baltimore's the only cheap place left.
John WatersI'm always amazed at friends who say they try to read at night in bed but always end up falling asleep. I have the opposite problem. If a book is good I can't go to sleep, and stay up way past my bedtime, hooked on the writing. Is anything better than waking up after a late-night read and diving right back into the plot before you even get out of bed to brush your teeth?
John WatersI liked speed. I was on black beauties all the time. Nothing bad happened to me. I didn't become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie. We weren't stoned when we made them; I was stoned when I made movies up. I did them all.
John WatersThe selfie has become a new autograph, but it takes twice as long to do as a real autograph. I do it because I'm like, "What am I going to do, these people bought me my house." Why am I not going to take a picture with them except I always say, "You have to hold it up! Shoot down or it's really ugly if you shoot up!" So not only does it take longer, you have to teach them camera angles.
John WatersIf you think someone's trying too hard, that's the worst thing they can do. To me, it's just desperate, never funny and never witty. It's kind of really old hat because just being shocking isn't enough. It has to change how you think about something. It has to startle you. It has to make you look at something and reconsider whether you're right. That's the whole point.
John Waters