John Waters Quotes

Sure, you always put some of your own experience into a film.

The whole point of film for me is that it's such a joy. It's such a wonder. The possibilities are literally endless in terms of what you can creatively do.

Making an authentic film about anything is difficult.

It's a great privilege to make a film, to have it shown, and for people to see it.

Go home, pick up your video camera, and make a film.

In New York City there are interesting characters and there are interesting stories. There's a story on every street corner. I love it. I think that's what really attracts me to making films.

I prefer to think of film making - you know, um, the sweat is supposed to be invisible. But a lot of sweat can go into making a film. But of course, if you enjoy doing it, you enjoy doing it.

People say you can't make movies about your politics or the environment. And, generally speaking, I completely divide those sides of my brain.

Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go "Wait, I have an idea!" You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: "Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?" Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can't sit on the surface. It's such a big change that you can't really explain it to anyone else.

I'm a slave to my imagination in terms of making narrative films.

That experience of touching down in a totally foreign place is like having a blank canvas: You begin with nothing, but stroke by stroke you build a life. This process requires everything great art requires-risk-tasking, hope, a great deal of imagination, all the qualities that are the building blocks of art. You must be able to dream something nearly impossible and toil to bring it into existence.

I've documented a lot of things myself as a filmmaker. If you want a rockumentary, that's in there.

In a time of destruction, create something.

I hope to direct a few more films before I leave the planet, so I hope I can find the material.

When working on and writing a film, I'm often more of a sponge than other times, aware of what's going on around me.

It is hard to do a film that wants to say something because, unfortunately, most everything has been said.

Cities are the abyss of the human species.

Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.

Some films go so well, and some films are disappointing. It's the beauty of the craft. You get it right, and you get it wrong. You have tremendous highs, and you have tremendous lows. Hopefully, you learn from them and become better, as you go along.

So this is where people come to live; I would have thought it is a city to die in.

As I get more and more involved in the child's world with Rocco his son I'm getting interested in making a film for children.

For me, making a movie is kind of like vomiting. Not that film is like vomit, but more like this mass of ideas and thoughts that you have and just have to put them out there. It's not even about making perfect sense - it's more about making perfect nonsense. I don't do too much soul-searching or self-analysis. I just enjoy making things.

Everything's a film idea if this is what you do.I've always been secretly confident that I'd never run out of ideas,because I've never had any. I just live my life, see things theway I do, and I'm just looking for a notion to hang it all on.

For me, with me, making a film is always about humanity.

What you don't want is to repeat a formula over and over or impose a formula to a movie that...when you impose yourself and you impose a formula and you're not open to explore and to find what is right for the movie, I think you're doing a disservice to the story and what you're trying to express.