John Waters Movie Quotes & Sayings

The worst thing you can do is make a cult movie. That means you got three great reviews and nobody went. An art film means it got a lot of good reviews and nobody went. There is no such thing as a counter culture now. What used to be considered that is commercial now. — John Waters

My dream is to be able to make something in Baltimore that's just there. Make a movie or make a show there. I only left because there wasn't any opportunity except being an extra in Barry Levinson or John Waters movies. — Derek Waters

So to make movies, if you're first goal is to make money, well you can! Make a tent-pole movie that China wants. But that's not the kind of thing that's really going to get your remembered. You're not going to change anything with that. You might become rich from it! — John Waters

I think my favorite movie is 'Joe Versus the Volcano' - or maybe 'Multiple Maniacs' by John Waters. — Justin Kirk

Watching a movie should be like hunting. Out of context, every image of the cinema is yours for a split second. Take them before they bury it. — John Waters

I liked speed. I was on black beauties all the time. Nothing bad happened to me. I didn't become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie. We weren't stoned when we made them; I was stoned when I made movies up. I did them all. — John Waters

I have no interest in ever making a movie I didn't write. If they were going to take my house away, then I guess I might have to. But my agent knows not to even bother sending me the scripts. — John Waters

Augustus: It's a metaphor
Hazel: You choose your behaviours based on their metaphorical resonances ...
Augustus: Oh yes, I'm a big believer in metaphor, Hazel Grace
*taps car window*
Hazel: I'm going to a movie with Augustus Waters, please record the next episodes of the ANTM marathon for me — John Green

My photographs are not really about photography. They are about editing. I use photography but they are all taken from the TV screen. Anybody can do that, but it's the order I put the pictures in to try to create a new kind of movie, something that you can put on your wall. — John Waters

According to the conventions of the genre, Augustus Waters kept his sense of humor till the end, did not for a moment waiver in his courage, and his spirit soared like an indomitable eagle until the world itself could not contain his joyous soul.
But this is the truth, a pitiful boy who desperately wanted not to be pitiful, screaming and crying, poisoned by an infected G-tube that kept him alive, but not alive enough.
I wiped his chin and grabbed his face in my hands and knelt down close to him so that I could see his eyes, which still lived. 'I'm sorry. I wish it was like that movie, with the Persians and the Spartans.'
'Me too,' he said.
'But it isn't,' I said.
'I know,' he said.
'There are no bad guys.'
'Yeah.'
'Even cancer isn't a bad guy really: Cancer just wants to be alive. — John Green

I can't complain about anything. It's like saying, "I don't like talkies." Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone. Believe me, if you ever want to watch my early films they would look a lot better on your phone than they would on a movie screen. The smaller the better. — John Waters

I didn't become a drug addict because I always had to make a movie. — John Waters

Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other. — John Waters

You have to remember the police used to raid and arrest the audience for seeing Scorpio Rising (1964), or Jack Smith movies. Wouldn't that be exciting today, if you see went to the movie and everyone at the IFC was arrested in a paddy wagon and taken away? — John Waters

I like hard movies; I like ones that are basically the opposite of a date movie. — John Waters

I just went to Times Square and the underground movies, sometimes three a day. I did get my education. But I really believed then, in 1966, they would not have allowed me to make any of the movies I made. Today, you could make a snuff movie at NYU and get an A. — John Waters

People vomitied at my movies; not because of the movie but because they were drunk. I took credit anyway. — John Waters

Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore. — John Waters

God knows if you could start a new sex act that's more important than making a good movie. — John Waters

When I started my goal was to make a successful underground movie. I started making movies in the mid-60s. Underground cinema then only lasted about two or three years. — John Waters

I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave! — John Waters