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.
It reinforced everything that I believe. I am an optimist. I believe in the goodness of people.
I must admit, even my fans everywhere I go in the world – just this week I was in London and Glasgow and the week before I was in Des Moines – my fans all look the same in all those cities – they look great!
I think social justice is important. I think it’s not fair.
I never thought I’d be 52 years old. I don’t think that anybody at 16 thinks like that.
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.
I think that in America there is a new movement of underground movies that wants to kick the ass of independent films that they think whine too much.
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.
God knows if you could start a new sex act that’s more important than making a good movie.
I haven’t committed all the crimes in my movies, I would have gotten the death penalty many years ago if I had.
I think that’s why I’ve lasted this long because I love everything I make fun of! I make fun of myself first! I mean, I started my career by calling my films “trash” – the local critics used to complain that I beat the critic to the typewriter.
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.
An underground hit didn’t make any money and it cost a dollar to get in.
It isn’t enough to shock. It’s easy to shock. Real surprise is what I’m after.
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 think I technically learned some things, hopefully. But I go to the movies for characters and story and a berserk vision.
If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn’t funny. That’s what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do ; try to be shocking and dirty.
You see a kid making a film on a cell phone. He doesn’t know what he’s doing either. But it comes out kind of good.
Everybody should wish they had home movies of themselves, acting out their lunacy on LSD.
I like hard movies; I like ones that are basically the opposite of a date movie.