I think any big success is paralyzing. I have observed it in others.

When people see the conventions, they think they're going to get the straightforward genre - I don't give them that and they get mad. People see that and they think I don't understand the conventions because I'm not a good filmmaker.

There's absolutely no point in beating yourself up. Focus on going forward.

She [Bettie Page] was a traumatized person, but she did have an active sex life.

My films have elements of genre in them, which prevents them from being purely art films.

I make unpopular versions of popular things. I make a horror film and it's not a horror film. None of my genre movies function as genre movies.

Punk rock, when I was a part of it, was called 'the underground.' There was something very attractive in all the hidden places, the hidden histories.