John Waters Quotes

Every once in a while, when the audience is expecting to see one thing, you have to show them something else.

I want people to be blown away when I do what they don't expect.

The challenge, really, on any new film is to try to avoid that and achieve a few moments that aren't cliche.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

I really like it when you can step outside of what's come before and find a surprise for the reader and find a surprise for yourself.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

I'm a great believer in the beauty and the power of surprise.

The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people: to present them with something they didn't expect.

You don't just become number one because you sing like everybody else. There is something different you bring to the table. Make sure you are constantly getting into the newest technologies. Learn the history of what you do, and always respect the ones who came before you.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

I never tried to revolutionise photography; I just do what I do and keep my fingers crossed that people will like it.

I always try to improve, to find new ways of expressing myself, to keep looking for truth and originality.

I'm into emulation, not imitation.

My work is more about trying to ask good questions and not trying to come up with big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that.

When the whole point of Queen was to be original.

If you're not observing the world around you, in some sense you're not really an artist because then that means you're just replicating other people's stuff, or, I don't even know what you're doing.

There's the conventional wisdom, of which I have none, where you get a record deal, you get a publicist, you get a campaign, and you do the tour, but none of that adds up to things like nuance and subtlety and dynamic.

The best imitation in the world is not half as good as a poor original.

Groups like The Mountain Brothers just have to keep on doing what they're doing - just make it dope and just make it different. And not try to compete with other people of color.

What guides me is to do work that's more avant-garde - things that I think are special. You can easily become a celebrity and get caught up in all that blur. I just want to work and surprise myself.

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.

I'm obsessed with giving the audience something they don't see coming.