John Waters Quotes
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I wrote about Herschell in my book 'Shock Value,' for which I interviewed him. We became friends; I had dinner with Herschell the last year before he died. He was elderly, but his mind was perfectly intact.
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I always was a weird child. My mother told me the story that, in kindergarten, I would come home and tell her about this weird kid in my class who drew only with black crayons and didn't speak to other kids. I talked about it so much that my mother brought it up with the teacher, who said, 'What? That's your son.'
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I do take a one-week vacation every year, and I go to London in the fall.
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I like film books at the bottom of the barrel and art books at the top. 'The Ghastly One,' by Jimmy McDonough, is a hilarious biography of one of the most hideous directors who ever picked up a movie camera - Andy Milligan.
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Liberal censors are the worst. I don't remember any trouble with 'Serial Mom' or 'Cecil B. Demented' or any of them. Except 'Cry Baby.'
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'Blood Feast' is my favorite of Lewis' films. When we shot 'Serial Mom,' and I showed them the infamous tongue scene, one of the female crew members said, 'I hate when a guy does that.'
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I don't trust anyone that hasn't been to jail at least once in their life. You should have been, or something's the matter with you.
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I want to be commercial. I'm never the person who says, 'I don't care if people don't see my movies.' I always want people to see my movies.
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I can make a movie for $5M, which used to be a routinely low, independent movie, but there's no such thing as that any more.
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Who have I been starstruck by in real life? One of the weirdest ones was, when we were making 'Cry-Baby,' David Nelson from 'The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.' I couldn't believe he was sitting in my living room. Certainly Patricia Hearst. Tab Hunter. A lot of the stars I've worked with, when I first got them.
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I grew up in Baltimore, which is, you know, a city of extremes certainly, but my parents were very conservative. But they made me feel safe, and even though they were mortified at what I was doing, they encouraged it. I think because they thought, what else could I do?
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I like art. It's another way to rebel.
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I wish something on T.V. would trouble me. Then maybe I would watch it.
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My main residence is Baltimore. I have an apartment in New York, one in San Francisco, and I live in a rental in Provincetown in the summer.
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When I was young, there were bars called the 'Hungry Hole,' and in those same neighbourhoods are now gay people pushing baby carriages.
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Everybody think they're an outsider - that word's over! When I was young, being an outsider, I thought it was a bad thing you didn't want to be.
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I don't mind snobs, if they have a reason to be a snob.
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I always wanted them to look like Hollywood movies; I just didn't know how to do it.
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I've been an art collector since the Sixties, and I kept it very separate from my showbusiness career. I've had art shows since the early Nineties, a museum show that travelled to four countries. I've had three or four art books; it's just another way I have to tell stories.
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The rudest possible gift is a gift card. It means you think the person is stupid and has no interests. The only good gift card is Bitcoin. You practically have to be a hacker to know about it.
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I think it would be fun to die onstage! Just drop dead in the middle of my show? That wouldn't be so bad.
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'Hairspray' maybe did change people's minds, and that's how you get your political enemies to change their minds - by making them laugh and making them look at something in a way they haven't seen it. Not by preaching and cutting them off and being a separatist.
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One Christmas, Dennis Dermody, the movie critic of 'Paper,' gave me 'Rock Hudson: A Gathering of Friends,' the master invitation list from Rock Hudson's memorial service. It's so great. Everyone's in it, with personal addresses all bound into a book. Someone else once gave me Ike Turner's will. I get great stuff.
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Being a traditionalist, I'm a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I'm already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left.