I don't think I had a bad influence on anybody. I made people feel better about themselves.

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.

Smile, laugh, spread a little joy in someone's life, it surely come back on you in a good way.

Let's face it: in advertising, you are paid more, but you die younger. It's not very forgiving. Like sports stars, you're in it during your better years, and then you're out looking for work.

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

we are not here just because we have nowhere else; we need nowhere else, because we have the Institute, and those who are in it are our family.

Of all the nations in the world, the people of the United States like freedom maybe a little better than anybody else.

Human life commences at the time of conception.

In 'Swimming Pool,' all the colors are very warm, sunny, the pool and all that. In 'Love Crime,' everything is so cold, and it's all inside skyscrapers.

What power there is in our service when our actions line up with our mission, skills and joy.

Great men always have dogs.

Personality is a mask you believe in.