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.
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 never got along in school really – I already knew what I wanted to do. I have never in my life got a paycheck from anywhere in the world that asked if I went to school.
I live in San Francisco, I live in Provincetown. They’re all the same, apart from Baltimore. Baltimore’s the only cheap place left.
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.
I don’t like heroin, unless you’re a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound of heroin.
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.
I’ve always believed in the goodness of people. I teach in prison. They all said, don’t do it. Carry a gun, take Mace. Are you kidding? I guess, they’re around so many criminal elements that they fear for.
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.
If I died tomorrow I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in my life. I enjoy making my movies, I enjoy doing what I do. I have a nice life.
How come there’s no terrorism with humor, which is a great way to humiliate your enemy? It’s a great time for that.
William Castle and Alfred Hitchcock were the first director-personalities. Before then, nobody in America knew what a director was.
I learned that people like my work because I praise things that others don’t like.
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 have no interest in cars. I have a plain, used Buick. I could run over 10 people, and you wouldn’t be able to describe my car.
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.
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.
The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” hitchhiker really made people never want to hitchhike again – the hitcher, the show. Hitchhiking is always vaguely sexual.
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.
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.