To use bad taste, you have to know the rules of good taste. I've always thanked my mother for that. She taught how to eat with proper table manners and all that stuff, to the point of rebellion. But I couldn't have rebelled from it if I didn't know it.

Censorship has been my best press agent my whole life.

People vomitied at my movies; not because of the movie but because they were drunk. I took credit anyway.

I 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.

I'd rather have a daughter in a whorehouse than a son in the police force,' Esther used to rage to anyone who would listen.

I don't think I had a bad influence on anybody. I made people feel better about themselves.

I do like Christmas. I do understand that there are people who hate it, and there are other religions that resent it. So, I speak to everybody - I try to speak to every kind of minority and majority that cannot escape the steamroller known as Christmas.