I keep on having ideas and developments. Some happen and some don't, but I still always have a way of telling a story.

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.

Always please God FIRSTAll the timeEvery time

[T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care ... They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.

Carrie doesn't seem to talk about anything with sharp edges. Maybe she's afraid they might poke her and then she'd burst.

Creating something is only half the battle. The other half is finding people who care about it.

In my second year in Los Angeles, when I was eighteen, I wasn't getting any bookings, so I stopped going out, stopped partying. It was a matter of getting to the work. I had to focus.

In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode, the peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed.

My confidence allows me to do things my way and help people make a decision. People like the idea of me just being me.

I think when you write an enigmatic character into a film, you have to have real confidence that the audience are going to go with it.

Close encounters are bad. Bad for the animal, as it causes stress, and bad for me for exactly the same reason.

It was a phenomenon I noticed many years ago. Young people were just giving up every bit of information about themselves they could.