Top 180 John Waters Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you ever go home with somebody and they don’t have books in their house, don’t sleep with them. I think that’s very important.”

— John Waters

2. “Without obsession, life is nothing.”

— John Waters

3. “Life is nothing if you’re not obsessed.”

— John Waters

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4. “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.”

— John Waters

5. “Stop blaming your parents. If you’re really angry at 60 years old, you’re an idiot! You’ve got to work some of it out.”

— John Waters

6. “Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.”

— John Waters

7. “True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.”

— John Waters

8. “Contemporary art hates you.”

— John Waters

9. “When they throw the water on the witch, she says, “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness”. That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.”

— John Waters

10. “Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.”

— John Waters

11. “Ever feel like killing somebody just to see if you could get away with it? Sure, you have. Everybody has little things that get on their nerves.”

— John Waters

12. “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.”

— John Waters

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13. “If you can make someone laugh who’s dead set against you, that’s the first step to winning them over to your side.”

— John Waters

14. “I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn’t let me.”

— John Waters

15. “If you’re not sure you could love your children, please don’t have them, because they might grow up and kill us.”

— John Waters

16. “To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.”

— John Waters

17. “The Easter Bunny is a major reason for heroin addiction in America.”

— John Waters

18. “Pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.”

— John Waters

19. “Technique is nothing more than failed style.”

— John Waters

20. “Tenemos que hacer que los libros vuelvan a molar. Si vas a casa de alguien y no tiene libros, no te lo folles.”

— John Waters

21. “To me, beauty is looks you can never forget. A face should jolt, not soothe.”

— John Waters

22. “The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” hitchhiker really made people never want to hitchhike again – the hitcher, the show. Hitchhiking is always vaguely sexual.”

— John Waters

23. “Baltimore never changes much. People aren’t impressed by anything. It’s great; it’s not a trendy town.”

— John Waters

24. “I’m for gay marriage. I don’t want to do it, but I certainly think people should be allowed to, and I wouldn’t vote for anybody that would be against it. But at the same time, why do we have to be good now? Why can’t we be villains in movies?”

— John Waters

25. “Just make sure your children hate authority and they’ll do fine.”

— John Waters

26. “People are going to say, “I was a lesbian back in the 90s” just like people say, “I was a hippie in the 60s”. I see them struggling. Rich girls struggling with their heterosexuality.”

— John Waters

27. “Humor is how you change people’s opinions, and if you can make someone laugh, they’ll listen, even if they hate you.”

— John Waters

28. “Stupid is never that entertaining. You can be stupid and sexy, stupid and funny but he’s just plain stupid. That is not remarkable, that’s what I mean.”

— John Waters

29. “I’m here today because of LSD. LSD gave me the confidence to be who I am today. Completely.”

— John Waters

30. “It was a mystery to me. To that awful black-and-white farm, with that aunt who was dressed badly, with smelly farm animals around when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn’t get it.”

— John Waters

31. “Some call me director, producer, filmmaker. I prefer to call myself pube-king.”

— John Waters

32. “But feeling down can make you feel up if you’re the creative type. The emotional damage may have already been done to you, but stop whining. Use your insanity to get ahead.”

— John Waters

33. “I love to read about anger. A “feel bad” book always makes me feel good. And no other novel in the history of literature is more depressing than Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children.”

— John Waters

34. “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.”

— John Waters

35. “And I seek people who break rules with happiness – and not bringing pain to themselves.”

— John Waters

36. “Librarians are always smart, a little nuts, and know how to party.”

— John Waters

37. “I think that’s why I’ve lasted this long because I love everything I make fun of! I make fun of myself first! I mean, I started my career by calling my films “trash” – the local critics used to complain that I beat the critic to the typewriter.”

— John Waters

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38. “Fantasies are like extra cash. They need to be banked for later use.”

— John Waters

39. “As soon as you stop listening to new music, your life is over. You are a fart.”

— John Waters

40. “My favorite characters are people who think they’re normal but they’re not. I live in Baltimore, and it’s full of people like that. I’ve also lived in New York, which is full of people who think they’re crazy, but they’re completely normal.”

— John Waters

41. “To me, racist jokes are not funny. I am politically correct, in a weird way. I like to push the boundaries that are politically correct.”

— John Waters

42. “I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty.”

— John Waters

43. “I respect everything I make fun of.”

— John Waters

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44. “I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you’ll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It’s as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.”

— John Waters

45. “I like rap music. But bragging about being rich to poor people is really offensive. I want to hear a rap song about buying a Cy Twombly painting or dating a museum curator. I want to hear about that kind of rich.”

— John Waters

46. “If your kid comes out of the bedroom and says he just shut down the government, he should have an outfit for that.”

— John Waters

47. “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

48. “Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.”

— John Waters

49. “I have no interest in cars. I have a plain, used Buick. I could run over 10 people, and you wouldn’t be able to describe my car.”

— John Waters

50. “Anytime you make someone laugh or satirize something, it’s the best way to change someone’s opinion because they’re defenseless – they laugh, they listen.”

— John Waters