Best 224 quotes of John Waters on MyQuotes

A lot of kids are moving to Baltimore, because we have a great music scene and we've got edge. Come on down, we've got scary edge. But great edge - it's still a city you can be a bohemian in.

And my little sister Chrissy, for teaching me that life is nothing if you're not obsessed.

And I seek people who break rules with happiness — and not bringing pain to themselves.

Anyone from my past I'm interested in, I've already stalked their homes. I like to go outside.

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.

A psychiatrist once told me early in treatment, "Stop trying to make me like you," and what a sobering and welcome smack in the face that statement was. Yet somehow, every day of my life is still a campaign for popularity, or better yet, a crowded funeral.

Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?

As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don't have any.

At the premiere of Hairspray on Broadway, Harvey Fierstein's mom said to my mom, "Didn't we raise great sons?" and my mother just started sobbing, because I'm sure they'd both been through other nights when people didn't say that.

Baltimore never changes much. People aren't impressed by anything. It's great; it's not a trendy town.

Censorship has been my best press agent my whole life.

Coke didn't last long enough; it gave me a hangover for two weeks for being high for ten minutes.

Contemporary art hates you.

...Don't let me ever hear you say, 'I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.' Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of 'literature'? That means fiction, too, stupid.

Do we secretly idolize our imagined opposites, yearning to become the role models for others we know we could never be for ourselves?

Dreamland Studios then was my bedroom at my parents' house, mostly [starring] people who were in my high school. They look straight at the camera; they're uncomfortable doing it. So, are [early movies] good? No.

Even illegal weapons have lost their panache. Zip guns and shanks were at least homemade. Where is the craft in a grade-schooler firing a magnum? What is the world coming to? It's not even bad to be a communist anymore!

Ever feel like killing somebody just to see if you could get away with it? Sure, you have. Everybody has little things that get on their nerves.

Everybody should wish they had home movies of themselves, acting out their lunacy on LSD.

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.

Everyone wants to be called an outsider so I'm a proud insider. If I was young I'd be in my parents' house shutting down the government on my computer. The new delinquent is the hacker.

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.

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.

"Family" this and "family" that. If I had a family I'd be furious that moral busybodies are taking the perfectly good word family and using it as a code for censorship the same way "states' rights" was used to disguise racism in the mid-sixties.

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

God knows if you could start a new sex act that's more important than making a good movie.

Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax.

Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other.

Hitchhiking, intrinsically, is sexual and dangerous. At the same time I never really felt scared. I was scared that nobody would pick me up and that I'd be waiting by the side of the road for a week.

How come there's no terrorism with humor, which is a great way to humiliate your enemy? It's a great time for that.

"How could you think of such awful things?" liberal critics always ask. "How else could I possibly amuse myself?" I always wonder.

Humor is how you change people's opinions, and if you can make someone laugh, they'll listen, even if they hate you.

I actually think that my films are intellectual. I think almost everything I do is intellectual, but I would never say that, because that's a compliment. That's up to others to say about me. The same way, I would never say I do art. I think art is up to history. It's up to other people to utter that word. So I try to be humble.

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal.

I always feel bad when I meet celebrities and I can just tell every single thing about their personal life, I just say, "Well, they don't have friends. Or a therapist." Once you have both, you don't have to share everything with people, because then you don't have a private life, and then you're, I guess, a workaholic.

I always give books. And I always ask for books. I think you should reward people sexually for getting you books. Don't send a thank-you note, repay them with sexual activity. If the book is rare or by your favorite author or one you didn't know about, reward them with the most perverted sex act you can think of. Otherwise, you can just make out.

I always say you need something weird on your face and some good shoes and nobody looks in the middle.

I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn't let me.

I always want to see films that are startling and amazing. Not just shocking. Shocking is easy to do. But startling in the way that makes you change how you think about things. Those are the movies I like the best.

I am on the road all the time. Whether I'm in Paris or in a small college town in Texas, I can't tell the difference, and that's good. You don't have to leave where you were born to be cool anymore.

I built a career on negative reviews. I didn't get a good review ever until Fran Lebowitz gave me a good review in Interview. That was the first good review I got in 10 years.

I built my [early] career on negative reviews. There was a cultural war going on, the '60s was going on. All the film critics were square. They hated my movies. You could never have that happen today. Critics are way too hip.

I came from a generation where women were almost deified, and like Groucho Marx's line, "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member", I thought, "I wouldn't want to sleep with a woman who would sleep with me!" It took me a long time to work my way through that.

I can't complain about anything. It's like saying, "I don't like talkies." Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone. Believe me, if you ever want to watch my early films they would look a lot better on your phone than they would on a movie screen. The smaller the better.

I can't tell the difference between the best and the worst 'cause I realize not everybody wants to have sex in the middle of a demolition derby race in the car.

I care about the presidential elections. I always vote. Sometimes I've voted more than once, illegally. But you can't anymore. The picture ID has ruined everything.

I couch-surfed for years. But I always wanted to live in Baltimore; I still do. If I had to choose, it would always be Baltimore.

I could never kill myself. I approve of suicide if you have horrible health. Otherwise it's the ultimate hissy fit.

I didn't become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie.

I do like Christmas. I do understand that there are people who hate it, and there are other religions that resent it. So, I speak to everybody - I try to speak to every kind of minority and majority that cannot escape the steamroller known as Christmas.