John Waters Quotes

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.

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

Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.

Just because something 'happens', because it is 'true', because the 'facts' are correct, does not ensure that it is the truth.

We’d have valet parking, too, but the attendants would be disguised as hostile schizophrenic street people who would squeegee-attack your windshield right as you pull up. Those in the know would have figured out by now that all our valets were ex-cons,

La vida no vale nada si no tienes una obsesión.

Our assholes will be clean but we must never wash our hands. Our immune systems will be strengthened by our being dirty. Not filthy. Just mildly grimy. Filthy fingernails have always been a favorite fashion accessory of mine. Especially when you place your hands in the prayer positions. Matter of fact, I urge all my followers to forgo nail polish permanently and replace it with expertly applied soot. The nonexistent gods above will ignore our prayers better this way.

Without Obsession, Life Is Nothing

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.

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

To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste. it's easy to disgust someone; I could make a ninety-minute film of people getting their limbs hacked off, but this would only be bad bad taste and not very stylish or original. To understand bad taste one must have very good taste. Good bad taste can be creatively nauseating but must, at the same time, appeal to the especially twisted sense of humor, which is anything but universal.

Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.

We're husky, we're hairy, we're homosexual, and out of the second closet.

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?

Never have a spontaneous moment in your life again. If you're going to have a hangover, it should be scheduled on your calendar months in advance. Rigid enjoyment of planning can get you high. Militant time management will enable you to ignore how maladjusted you would be if you had the time to notice it in the first place. Discipline is not anal compulsion; it's a lifestyle that breeds power. 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?!