John Waters Quotes

Who would have ever thought a top college like RISD would invite a filth elder like myself to set an example to its students‽

First of all, accept that something is wrong with you. It’s a good start. Something has always been wrong with me, too. We’re in a club of sorts, the lunatic fringe who are proud to band together. There’s a joyous road to ruin out there, and if you let me be your garbage guru, I’ll teach you how to succeed in insanity and take control of your low self-esteem. Personality disorders are a terrible thing to waste.

Green tree. Pretty lady. Car. Car. Truck,” she recites, naming out loud almost everything she sees. “Don’t mind me, I’m a gabberbox,” she chuckles. “A gabberbox?” I ask, confused at her term. “You know, hon, I talk a lot,” she explains before breaking into a laugh that is eerily familiar.

"The only insult I've ever received in my adult life was when someone asked me, "Do you have a hobby?" A HOBBY?! DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING DABBLER?!"

Librarians are always smart, a little nuts, and know how to party.

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.

Everyone's sex life is funny except your own. Every person's is, and yours never is. The lengths people go to — and the extremes and the conditions and the mental exercises and guilt and shame and happiness that everybody goes through — and what they'll do for sex is never-ending and mind-boggling and very interesting to me. And I don't think a lot of times people choose any of it.

If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck them.

You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop — the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents — that is the key to fashion leadership.

As soon as you stop listening to new music, your life is over. You are a fart.

And yep, here’s yet one more heterosexual man who loves his wife. I’m telling you, it’s a trend! Women I know who are always complaining they can never meet a good straight man — maybe you’re living in the wrong part of the country. Maybe you need to hitchhike. Route 70 West could be the path to a great marriage. Go ahead, stick out your thumb for romance.

Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?

My favourite characters are people who think they’re normal but they’re not. I live in Baltimore, and it’s full of people like that. I’ve also lived in New York, which is full of people who think they’re crazy, but they’re completely normal. I get my best material in Baltimore – you get dialogue that you just couldn’t imagine. I asked this guy in a bar what he did for a living and he said he traded deer meat for crack. I never realised that job even existed. You could make a whole movie about that person. And he was kind of cute too, if you could ignore his eyes rolling around his head. Although I did crack once, accidentally, and I thought: Oh my God, what, am I gonna rob my parents now? I prefer poppers – they’re legal in London, right? I used to do them on roller coasters. They’re illegal in Provincetown, which is the gay fishing village where I live in the summer. In the airport there are signs warning you to get rid of your poppers.

My idea of an interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a career.

"I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush? "Axis of Evil"? Come on. "A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain" is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even."