John Waters Quotes

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.

It wasn't until I started reading ... that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.

Sometimes you have to recycle celebrities to make them interesting, and they can be even better the second time around. Case in point: the fabulous and talented Miss Joey Heatherton, star of stage, screen, Vegas and mattress commercials. Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and be Joey Heatherton. On July 8, 1985, it must not have felt so hot. Joey, goddess, was detained in the U.S. passport office at Rockefeller Center for allegedly becoming abusive at not receiving special treatment in the passport line. Supposedly, she threw a tantrum, grabbed passport-office clerk, Mary Polik, tore her hair out and smashed her head against the Formica counter. Oh, well, nobody's perfect.

With humans it's abortion, but with chickens it's an omelet!

Nobody likes a bore on a soapbox. Humor is always the best defense and weapon. If you can make an idiot laugh, they’ll at least pause and listen before they do something stupid . . . to you.

Hairspray is the only really devious movie I ever made. The musical based on it is now being performed in practically every high school in America — and nobody seems to notice it’s a show with two men singing a love song to each other that also encourages white teen girls to date black guys. Pink Flamingos was preaching to the converted. But Hairspray is a Trojan horse: it snuck into Middle America and never got caught. You can do the same thing.

I’m rich! I don’t mean money-wise. I mean that I have figured out how to never be around assholes at any time in my personal and professional life. That’s rich.

If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em! Don’t sleep with people who don’t read!

But feeling down can make you feel up if you’re the creative type. The emotional damage may have already been done to you, but stop whining. Use your insanity to get ahead.

Nora Ephron’s great line that “overtipping only costs a few dollars more.

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

Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own.

Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership.

Remember: you must participate in the creative world you want to become part of.

My idea of rich is that you can buy every book you ever want without looking at the price and you're never around assholes. That's the two things to really fight for in life.