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.

I could never kill myself. I approve of suicide if you have horrible health. Otherwise it's the ultimate hissy fit.

I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand.

Every girl needs a bit of whimsy to remind her that life is a game and it's all about having fun.

Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures but in the use made of them.

The only thing Christianity can not be...is moderately important.

You either create or allow everything that happens to you.

I love being in love. It's the best feeling in the world. I have never felt like this before.

The whole Indian thing, I always say it's really the American holocaust. It's something we need to look at.

I have three brothers. Poor Mum; four boys.

I like to read either in motion or in water... I am happiest reading in the bathtub.