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

It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.

Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.

My idea of an interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a career.

True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.

Without obsession, life is nothing.

[My catholic education] sticked with me. It caused the rage I had to make 'Pink Flamingos.'

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.

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

I like hard movies; I like ones that are basically the opposite of a date movie.

The "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" hitchhiker really made people never want to hitchhike again - the hitcher, the show. Hitchhiking is always vaguely sexual.

Whatsoever things are true...think on these things.

It is true: we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.There is always a certain madness in love. But also there is always a certain method in madness.

Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go.

Develop a clean line of action for your leading character

I guess it's a choice we make," she said. "What's a choice?" I asked. And she said, "How much of the world we let in.

As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.

I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.

If by reaction you mean critical reaction, I was confident that we were putting out a quality book [ Treachery]. So I was reasonably sure that we'd get positive notices.

The subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches that delight the soul. Our soul takes joy in this right touching by the Essence of all experience.

Obviously neither 'American Idol' nor 'Dancing With the Stars' is a variety show in the classic sense, but the way they incorporate elements of drama, comedy and suspense is moderately ingenious.