John Waters Quotes

There are little things that get on my nerves, like people who have reading material in their powder room. When you go in someone’s house, and next to the toilet they have a huge basket of magazines, I find that repellent. I recommend against straining while reading.

Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.

I haven't committed all the crimes in my movies, I would have gotten the death penalty many years ago if I had.

Stop blaming your parents. If you're really angry at 60 years old, you're an idiot! You've got to work some of it out.

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal.

"Family" this and "family" that. If I had a family I'd be furious that moral busybodies are taking the perfectly good word family and using it as a code for censorship the same way "states' rights" was used to disguise racism in the mid-sixties.

I just went to Times Square and the underground movies, sometimes three a day. I did get my education. But I really believed then, in 1966, they would not have allowed me to make any of the movies I made. Today, you could make a snuff movie at NYU and get an A.

I think it's important to visit people in prison. And if you know anyone in prison, I would encourage you very much to visit them. They're a good audience! I always get good letters from prisoners. I don't usually answer them because I have a lot going on in my life, but I get some really good ones, I get some really good letters from prison.

I think it's all independent films. There aren't any! If they were looking for me when I was making Polyester, then it'd be perfect, but they're not. I'm not looking for that. TV is much bigger and better now; far more people see it.

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.

If I died tomorrow I've accomplished what I set out to do in my life. I enjoy making my movies, I enjoy doing what I do. I have a nice life.

"How could you think of such awful things?" liberal critics always ask. "How else could I possibly amuse myself?" I always wonder.

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.

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

I've signed peoples' parole cards at book signings and it's very touching.

Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.

Terrible things always seemed to happen to hitchhikers in movies - including my own. It has always been glamorous and dangerous and scary and sexy.

I would never do hard-core pornography, because it looks too much like open-heart surgery.

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 am on the road all the time. Whether I'm in Paris or in a small college town in Texas, I can't tell the difference, and that's good. You don't have to leave where you were born to be cool anymore.

You go to school to figure out who you want to be and how you can do it, and [maybe] I should have, because the films would probably be technically better.

If you're a parent, I tell you how to get through Christmas. I think that if you've ever had a bad feeling about Christmas coming, I'll tell you how to deal with it. So, I think in a way it's like going to a sane psychiatrist that actually gives you some good advice, I hope!

I wish something on T.V. would trouble me. Then maybe I would watch it.

I care about the presidential elections. I always vote. Sometimes I've voted more than once, illegally. But you can't anymore. The picture ID has ruined everything.

I've bought the same used car from the same man since I was 16 - a Buick every time. They always work, I don't care what color it is. I don't want people to recognize my car in case I want to commit a crime.

You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.

Valentine's Day is my mother's birthday. If I'm wildly in love, I've sent people chicken hearts, which seems to appeal to the kind of person that I've been in love with.

The only way I've learned to change anyone's mind politically is to make them laugh. My whole career has been about that.

True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.

I'm perpetual tourist, and that's the best way to travel. Nobody gets used to you, you make new friends without having to hear anyone's everyday problems, and you jet back still feeling like a know-it-all.

The further away I am from water, the less well I do!

I'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?

Technique is nothing more than failed style.

I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.

I always say you need something weird on your face and some good shoes and nobody looks in the middle.

My photographs are not really about photography. They are about editing. I use photography but they are all taken from the TV screen. Anybody can do that, but it's the order I put the pictures in to try to create a new kind of movie, something that you can put on your wall.

Dreamland Studios then was my bedroom at my parents' house, mostly [starring] people who were in my high school. They look straight at the camera; they're uncomfortable doing it. So, are [early movies] good? No.

I can't complain about anything. It's like saying, "I don't like talkies." Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone. Believe me, if you ever want to watch my early films they would look a lot better on your phone than they would on a movie screen. The smaller the better.

I always give books. And I always ask for books. I think you should reward people sexually for getting you books. Don't send a thank-you note, repay them with sexual activity. If the book is rare or by your favorite author or one you didn't know about, reward them with the most perverted sex act you can think of. Otherwise, you can just make out.

Insider can be more ludicrous. How did I ever end up [as one]? Carsick [Waters's book on hitchhiking] was on the New York Times best-seller list for five weeks. [One of the characters was] a singing asshole that does a duet with Connie Francis! Times have changed. That's mainstream, in a weird way.

The 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.

If you ever go home with somebody and they don't have books in their house, don't sleep with them. I think that's very important.

With Hairspray, we had a great experience. I always think of the last time I saw Divine: He was in the last booth in the back of the Odeon. Now every time I go in there, I look at that table. It was a wonderful night.Hairspray had been out a week; it was a hit. If I had to pick a night that was going to be the last night.

I don't like heroin, unless you're a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound of heroin.

It was a mystery to me. To that awful black-and-white farm, with that aunt who was dressed badly, with smelly farm animals around when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn't get it.

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.

As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don't have any.

I used to run away to New York from Baltimore all the time.I would get on the Greyhound bus and tell my parents I was going to some sorority weekend. I'd even make up fake permission slips, come to New York and just ask people on the street if I could stay with them and go see midnight movies.