Just make sure your children hate authority and they'll do fine.

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.

Risk means 'shit happens' or 'good luck

People are capable of great, great change during the span of one lifetime. And women even more than men.

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

Jesus said his disciples would be known for their love, not for their placards of protest and angry letters to the editor.

The same thought resonates.

My pet peeve is when people criticize things when they're just trying to have a conversation.

Anything that makes you feel the most alone also has the greatest power to connect you.

As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade

People are responsible for their opinions, but Providence is responsible for their morals.