The only way I've learned to change anyone's mind politically is to make them laugh. My whole career has been about that.

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.

... that "take" was a word people used for those who had so little to give as to be immeasurable.

Integrative thinkers consider the problem as a whole, rather than breaking it down and farming out the parts.

Beauty comes from within, not from what you wear.

Take nothing for granted. Not one blessed, cool mountain day or one hellish, desert day or one sweaty, stinky, hiking companion. It is all a gift.

Hard work is good for the soul, and it keeps you from feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have time.

the principal sources of human misery may fairly be said to lie in the over-possession, under-possession, and the unwise use of economic goods.

Its taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now.

There is a banking adage that if it's growing like a weed, it's a good chance that it's a weed.

I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.

It is imperative that we recognize that whatever has happened to us has happened to others. They have coped and so must we. We are not alone. Heavenly Father's help is near.