John Waters Quotes

I know people who've gone to jail. It don't mean you stop loving them! They deservin' love just as much in there, and maybe they needin' it more.

I'd like people to think of me as someone who cares about them.

At my lowest moments, I think of people who come to shows. I still get very sad and sometimes I feel like I have no friends, but when that happens now, I'll think of people whose names or faces I don't know - they're my friends and they love me. I've got them. It really does save me. I still feel awkward, but that's the one thing I can grab onto at my lowest points.

Take time to get to know people. Understand where they are coming from, what is important to them. Make sure they are with you.

I think listening to people is helpful.

For me, I think it's such an important thing to hear other people's stories, because you do find ways that either you can learn something from them, or you can identify with something that they've gone through. You realize that maybe what you're going through in life isn't just specific to you, that somebody else understands it, or you talk to someone and all of sudden you see something in a completely different way because of what they've said to you or shared with you.

I think being compassionate of each other's lives and issues is nonnegotiable when it comes to friendships. We're all going through different stages and issues, and as I get older, I'm trying to lean into that.

One of the ways we communicate that we can be trusted is in the way we care for other people.

I think that's what centers me the most - all my people, all my animals.

No matter how many people celebrate your gifts, don't ever think that you are more important to them than your gift is to them. This is why many people fail: They fail because they think that people came to follow them.

I think the best way people can connect to you is by being real

I cannot cure everybody. I cannot help everybody. But to tell the lonely person that I am not far or different from that lonely person, that I am with him or her, that's all I think we can do and we should do.

One of the things that made me long to be back in prison was that I had so little opportunity for reading, thinking and quiet reflection after my release. I intend, amongst other things, to give myself much more opportunity for such reading and reflection.

What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood.

I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people.

Sometimes you think certain details are things that only you would notice, so it's a great thing to feel like you're not by yourself and people understand where you're coming from.

I think because I can be sad, and I can be lonely, my gift would be trying to help other people feel less lonely and less sad. Because that's what I understand.

I think people are people and, if their feelings are truthful, they can connect. It doesn't matter if you're an aging, 50-something wrestler at the end of his career, or an ambitious, 20-something ballet dancer.

I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved.

People often ask me questions that I cannot very well answer in words, and it makes me sad to think they are unable to hear the voice of my silence.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

People have said, 'Don't cry' to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is, 'I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings. Don't cry.' I'd rather have them say, 'Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you.'

Why do we tell stories? It's because we want to connect to people, we want to tell them who we are, we want to tell them a story that affects us, that impacts us. And to help a young filmmaker doing a short or independent film is my testament, I think, is my desire to really make sure that our younger generations get passed along all the elders' experience and to literally have the image - to literally carry them on their shoulders and say, 'This is what the world is. This is how the world operates. Let me show you how.'

I was raised in a country [South Africa] with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes. I don't know how you can come out of that and not have an awareness for the world. I think that if my life had turned out any other way and I was working in a bank, I would still feel this way about it, because there's a connection to humanity that to me is really important.

It so difficult to know what the people we love really need.