Fame is protection if you go to a scary place. Fame is fun. A lot of people don't say anything and you don't know they know who you are.

I make independent movies. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know any other job that I could really get.

Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.

At the premiere of Hairspray on Broadway, Harvey Fierstein's mom said to my mom, "Didn't we raise great sons?" and my mother just started sobbing, because I'm sure they'd both been through other nights when people didn't say that.

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

My hobby is extreme Catholic behavior - before the Reformation.

I hate it when people say, I'm an artist. I think, well, I'll be the judge of that. And I don't think artist is a job description. It's a critique, a favorable critique, that someone else might apply to your work. I guess in the art world I'm not exactly a photographer, but I do use photography.