1. “You should never read just for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own.” – John Waters
2. “I learned that people like my work because I praise things that others don’t like.” – John Waters
3. “Not wanting anyone to pop my bubble by speaking to me, I immediately began reading Lesbian Nuns, and that did the trick. No one attempted small talk.” – John Waters
4. “Do we secretly idolize our imagined opposites, yearning to become the role models for others we know we could never be for ourselves?” – John Waters
5. “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.” – John Waters
6. “You should want to be rich at 40, at 20 you should want to kill the rich; it’s the right of youth.” – John Waters
7. “I think the extremes are something that’s really interesting to see coalesce in movies.” – John Waters
8. “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.” – John Waters
9. “I think I technically learned some things, hopefully. But I go to the movies for characters and story and a berserk vision.” – John Waters
10. “Everything makes you who you are, so I was lucky that I had a good family that was horrified by what I wanted to do but was also supportive of it, right to the very end.” – John Waters
11. “Coke didn’t last long enough; it gave me a hangover for two weeks for being high for ten minutes.” – John Waters
12. “Some call me director, producer, filmmaker. I prefer to call myself pube-king.” – John Waters
13. “Life is nothing if you’re not obsessed.” – John Waters
14. “Technique is nothing more than failed style.” – John Waters
15. “Remember: you must participate in the creative world you want to become part of.” – John Waters
16. “Nothing shouts midlife crisis louder than driving a convertible.” – John Waters
17. “Anytime you make someone laugh or satirize something, it’s the best way to change someone’s opinion because they’re defenseless – they laugh, they listen.” – John Waters
18. “When I was young, no one wanted to be one; now even the President of the United States would call himself an outsider. So now I’m for insiders.” – John Waters
19. “I don’t trust anyone that hasn’t been to jail at least once in their life.” – John Waters
20. “True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.” – John Waters
21. “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.” – John Waters
22. “It isn’t enough to shock. It’s easy to shock. Real surprise is what I’m after.” – John Waters
23. “Anyone from my past I’m interested in, I’ve already stalked their homes. I like to go outside.” – John Waters
24. “Stupid is never that entertaining. You can be stupid and sexy, stupid and funny but he’s just plain stupid. That is not remarkable, that’s what I mean.” – John Waters
25. “Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because I don’t have to do anything except bring wine and go to my sister’s all day and go to the movies with the family. So, actually, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, but there’s not much comedy material on Thanksgiving. Melatonin really isn’t that funny.” – John Waters
26. “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.” – John Waters
27. “I keep on having ideas and developments. Some happen and some don’t, but I still always have a way of telling a story.” – John Waters
28. “I’m thrilled to have a completely new audience that I can get from Court TV, without it being my own trial. That was the only other way I would have gotten it.” – John Waters
29. “To me, racist jokes are not funny. I am politically correct, in a weird way. I like to push the boundaries that are politically correct.” – John Waters
30. “If you can make someone laugh who’s dead set against you, that’s the first step to winning them over to your side.” – John Waters
31. “I could never kill myself. I approve of suicide if you have horrible health. Otherwise it’s the ultimate hissy fit.” – John Waters
32. “As soon as you stop listening to new music, your life is over. You are a fart.” – John Waters
33. “I don’t think I had a bad influence on anybody. I made people feel better about themselves.” – John Waters
34. “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.” – John Waters
35. “I would never do hard-core pornography, because it looks too much like open-heart surgery.” – John Waters
36. “Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.” – John Waters
37. “Wealth is walking into any bookshop and buying any book you want without looking at the price tag.” – John Waters
38. “Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.” – John Waters
39. “If you’re not sure you could love your children, please don’t have them, because they might grow up and kill us.” – John Waters
40. “Without obsession, life is nothing.” – John Waters
41. “When they throw the water on the witch, she says, “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness”. That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.” – John Waters
42. “God knows if you could start a new sex act that’s more important than making a good movie.” – John Waters
43. “I never rewatch the great films of my favorite directors because I’m afraid they won’t hold up.” – John Waters
44. “I believe that if a seven-year old kid has heard of Naked Lunch and is daring enough to want to read it, he’s old enough to read it.” – John Waters
45. “I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.” – John Waters
46. “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.” – John Waters
47. “I think that young people understand me perfectly. I think that’s the luckiest thing about my career, that I get older and they get younger, and it didn’t stop with my generation.” – John Waters
48. “Things are going great in every part of my life except movies. That’s okay. I’ve got a lot of other parts of my life. I’ve made 15 movies. You can see any one of my movies and it says the same thing.” – John Waters
49. “Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.” – John Waters
50. “When I started my goal was to make a successful underground movie. I started making movies in the mid-60s. Underground cinema then only lasted about two or three years.” – John Waters
51. “As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don’t have any.” – John Waters
52. “Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.” – John Waters
53. “Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents – that is the key to fashion leadership.” – John Waters
54. “My idea of an interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a career.” – John Waters
55. “There’s a prison there, too, which always makes me feel included.” – John Waters
56. “Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own.” – John Waters
57. “I love to read about anger. A “feel bad” book always makes me feel good. And no other novel in the history of literature is more depressing than Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children.” – John Waters
58. “If you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them.” – John Waters
59. “Just make sure your children hate authority and they’ll do fine.” – John Waters
60. “I go to colleges all the time in America, and everyone’s gay, and I think how can this be? And it’s only in rich schools. In poor schools, nobody’s gay.” – John Waters
61. “When the worst thing that can happen to you does, I try to be a friend.” – John Waters
62. “You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.” – John Waters
63. “The anger I have about high school – which I do have because they discouraged every interest I ever had; actually I call it anti-education – that anger led to my career.” – John Waters
64. “I liked speed. I was on black beauties all the time. Nothing bad happened to me. I didn’t become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie. We weren’t stoned when we made them; I was stoned when I made movies up. I did them all.” – John Waters
65. “I haven’t committed all the crimes in my movies, I would have gotten the death penalty many years ago if I had.” – John Waters
66. “People vomitied at my movies; not because of the movie but because they were drunk. I took credit anyway.” – John Waters
67. “Watching a movie should be like hunting. Out of context, every image of the cinema is yours for a split second. Take them before they bury it.” – John Waters
68. “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.” – John Waters
69. “Fantasies are like extra cash. They need to be banked for later use.” – John Waters
70. “I live in San Francisco, I live in Provincetown. They’re all the same, apart from Baltimore. Baltimore’s the only cheap place left.” – John Waters
71. “I never had any desire to get a tattoo. If I was ever going to get one, I would get a plain anchor with a rope around it, the most unimaginative possible tattoo, like Popeye had.” – John Waters
72. “I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn’t let me.” – John Waters
73. “Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.” – John Waters
74. “I`d love to sell out completely. It`s just that nobody has been willing to buy.” – John Waters
75. “To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.” – John Waters
76. “Fame is protection if you go to a scary place. Fame is fun. A lot of people don’t say anything and you don’t know they know who you are.” – John Waters
77. “No comedy should be longer than 90 minutes. There’s no such thing as a good long joke.” – John Waters
78. “I like hard movies; I like ones that are basically the opposite of a date movie.” – John Waters
79. “I’ll have pot in my home for guests – I’m polite! – but I don’t sit around and smoke by myself, ever. Not like I did when I was young.” – John Waters
80. “I’m so lucky to be having a happy childhood as an adult.” – John Waters
81. “I was thinking about sort of the similarities between “art movies” and lowbrow movies like kitschy sexploitation films. I think they share certain qualities, whether they’re hyper-stylized or overly emotive or just very visual.” – John Waters