John Waters Quotes

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

There's a joke in everything, the trick is finding it. The best compliment a joke can get is what Huxley said about Darwin's theory of evolution - 'Why didn't I think of that?'

We just make stuff that we think is funny and fun, and I think that's the most you can do. I think if you're chasing virality, it just feels desperate.

I tried to think of a witty play on Every picture tells a thousand words, but then the whole word/picture thing collapsed on me.

The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

I'm trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, “Well, don't expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.” I decide to go ahead and like Boggs.

It's too difficult to start right from scratch and try and be funny out of the blue.

My brain's not sharp enough to come up with a witty comment.

I don't think I'm a witty person. To me, a witty person is a funny person who is also a smart person. My friend David Rakoff, who died a few years ago, he was a witty person. Fran Lebowitz is a witty person. I don't think there are that many witty people around, so you tend to notice them when they do come around. I don't consider myself to be that.

Digression is the soul of wit.

It's weird because I think of movies like Reality Bites or something, where, even though my life was nothing like that, I hadn't done something contemporary for a while, and it's easier. You do try to make something your own.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

I'm a music fan, and I can listen to the radio, or music, without thinking, "How am I going to screw this up?" [Laughs] If I'm really actively trying to think of a parody, then I'll have my antenna out, and be a little more proactive about it.

I walk around and think about things. When I come across a thought that makes me laugh, I write it down. Then, at night, I say the thought to people through a microphone. I don't think about politics or pop culture very much, so those thoughts don't often make it to the microphone.

I think if anything, the fact that it's popular right now makes me go: "Well, I guess I'm going to start doing something else then in the next few years." I dunno, it almost feels hackneyed at this point. To start a premise by saying, "I did this awkward thing." But then again, awkwardness and feeling alienated are always going to be a part of comedy. Alienation, I suppose, can't be hackneyed because it will always exist.

My advice is: to try and stay really true to the things that make YOU laugh, as opposed to trying to create a character that you think is funny. Some comedians get into bad habits when they are trying to create something that is not them, and they are trying to write a voice that isn't their true voice.

I think my thing is that I try and pick up on things that other people have maybe not picked up on.

A man often runs the risk of throwing away a witticism if he admits that it is his own.

If evolution was worth its salt, it should've evolved something better than 'survival of the fittest.' I think a better idea would be 'survival of the wittiest.' At least, that way, creatures that didn't survive could've died laughing.

I think the beauty of the film industry is that if another person tries to become another person or act like another person or imitate another person, they don't really get too far. When that person starts to realize who they are and what they can bring to the table, they start to blossom and grow. With that, it's not so much me looking towards my predecessors who have paved the way in the industry - it's more getting inspired. I get little bits and pieces of what I can take from any and everybody.

The man who attracts attention is the man who is thinking all the time, and expressing himself in little ways. It is not the man who tries to dazzle his employer by doing the theatrical, the spectacular.

I think a band that doesn't have a sense of humor can come up with their own take on whimsy.Kind of lead-footed and ham-handed, but I think just all the better for that.

I just sit there and try to think of stuff that I could do that's a little different but still not step outside of who I am.

Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.

In a weird way, riffing on genres is kind of a reaction to formula. When you watch so much of the programmers and the films that you just think you've seen before, it's kind of going back to the well in terms of trying to conjure up the spirit of what made you excited about films in the first place.