Diablo Cody Quotes

To enjoy being famous, you need to have a screw loose.

I don't have a terrible singing voice, but I also wouldn't call it 'good.' I can carry a tune.

I try to avoid Twitter. I occasionally can't resist the siren call of email.

Of course, the strippers also take pains not to appear too innocent, valorous, or bookishly inclined. (In direct opposition to the Swayze Mandate of 1987, everybody puts Baby in a goddamn corner.)

I didn't even know how to talk to people, I didn't know how to talk to the press. I was just a jester. And I still feel that way. But, I mean, what haven't I learned? Everything that I know is new information because I was starting with nothing.

I'm glad that as a 33-year-old working mother, I can still choose to wear a Hello Kitty T-shirt or stay up late scrolling through the Twitter feed of my junior-high crush.

If a woman chooses to work, people say, "Oh it's so sad that you're not at home with your children." But no one ever says that to a man because it's assumed that the man is going to be the provider. There's this double standard that exists and it really frustrates me.

I have a lot of screenwriter friends and many of them have had an experience where they aren't even welcome on set during production.

I have a huge repertoire. I love karaoke.

I hear that 5 o'clock whistle in my mind like Fred Flintstone and I have to stop. I'm also not much of a morning writer. I have a sweet spot from about 11am to 4pm. But I really work during that time.

He wasn't a carrier of commitment-phobia or other notable boy diseases and he used expensive moisturizer. That's about all it takes to bang my gong.

I think it's great when writers get recognition; it doesn't happen very often. I just don't want that writer to be me. Let it be Aaron Sorkin or, you know, somebody good.

Jeez banana! Shut your freaking gob!

Gas Attendant: Thata ain't no etch-a-sketch. Thats one doodle that can't be un-did home skillet.

I really just love to open a blank document and spew, whereas with a screenplay I have to be more judicious.

Somebody asked me earlier if I thought it was really important to tell stories about women's struggles. And I said yes, but at the same time, it's also important to tell stories about women's triumphs, women being slackers, women being criminals, women being heroes.

Judy Blume excels at describing how it feels to be invisible. So how poetic is it that Blume herself is suddenly everywhere?

Juno MacGuff: I was out handling things way beyond my maturity level.

Shoulda gone to China. They give away babies like free iPods. They put them in guns and shoot them out at sporting events.

Juno MacGuff: I don't know what kind of girl I am.

I appreciate the positivity of those 'year of the woman' articles - it's good to get that energy out there - but at the same time, in Hollywood it's not happening yet.

These days, the Rolling Stones still have an edge, but that fangs-out ferocity has mellowed considerably.

Speaking of Twitter, I don't even know if I composed a blog entry in 2009, as I was too busy parceling my every thought into cute 140-character sound bites. I used to only worry about being pithy for a living; now some of my best lines are wasted on a free app!

I myself identify as a recovering Blockhead. You'd be surprised how many twenty- and thirty-something hipster chicks have the NKOTB skeleton in their closet, albeit artfully concealed by stacks of Ksubi skinny jeans and ironic Judas Priest T-shirts.

I always say when you write a book, you're a 'one-man band.' Whereas, when you finish a screenplay, it's just a sketch.

I've been watching 'American Idol' since its debut season in 2002. Back then, America hadn't yet evolved into a gladiatorial cybernation of bloggers, tweeters, and self-ordained voice coaches.

The best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are.

Whether it's a blatant homage or unconscious mimicry, the Rolling Stones have permanently, indelibly influenced how rock stars look and behave.

He is the cheese to my macaroni.

I'm a pessimist by nature. I don't think things are ever going to work out, I'm not particularly ambitious.

The fashion industry isn't merely content to encase my meaty flanks in skintight denim. Oh, no! That denim also has to be white, a color that attracts ketchup, wine, garlic aioli, and any other foodstuffs I might otherwise be able to enjoy if I wasn't wearing ridiculously tight pants.

For me, stripping was an unusual kind of escape. I had nothing to escape but privilege, but I claimed asylum anyway. At twenty-four, it was my last chance to reject something and become nothing. I wanted to terrify myself. Mission accomplished.

Nobody comes to Minnesota to take their clothes off, at least as far as I know.

It's possible that I've matured as a writer, and I hope I've matured emotionally, but I always find myself revisiting these adolescent scenes.

To aspiring writers, I would tell them that we live in a wonderful time where you're able to make your work visible, easily. If you think about it, even ten years ago or twenty years ago, there was a middle man, there was a publisher, there were studios, there was this world of rejection letters. Now, we're in a place where we have the technology and the ability to go shoot our own movies or to put stuff on YouTube or a blog, if you're a writer, or self-publish.

When I was a kid, I attended a small Catholic school in a south suburb of Chicago.

I can't write at night. For me, I'm programmed to believe that nighttime is for relaxation.

I've come to find more satisfaction and enjoyment in writing screenplays over the years because that's what I do primarily now.

I just want to be able to keep my house and pay for my son's school tuition in Los Angeles.

The fact is, when I wrote 'Juno' - and I think this is part of its charm and appeal - I didn't know how to write a movie. And I also had no idea it was going to get made!

Ten Best Song to Strip
1. Any hip-swiveling R&B fuckjam. This category includes The Greatest Stripping Song of All Time: "Remix to Ignition" by R. Kelly.

2. "Purple Rain" by Prince, but you have to be really theatrical about it. Arch your back like Prince himself is daubing body glitter on your abdomen. Most effective in nearly empty, pathos-ridden juice bars.

3. "Honky Tonk Woman" by the Rolling Stones. Insta-attitude. Makes even the clumsiest troglodyte strut like Anita Pallenberg. (However, the Troggs will make you look like even more of a troglodyte, so avoid if possible.)

4. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard. The Lep's shouted choruses and relentless programmed drums prove ideal for chicks who can really stomp. (Coincidence: I once saw a stripper who, like Rick Allen, had only one arm.)

5. "Amber" by 311. This fluid stoner anthem is a favorite of midnight tokers at strip joints everywhere. Mellow enough that even the most shitfaced dancer can make it through the song and back to her Graffix bong without breaking a sweat. Pass the Fritos Scoops, dude.

6. "Miserable" by Lit, but mostly because Pamela Anderson is in the video, and she's like Jesus for strippers (blonde, plastic, capable of parlaying a broken nail into a domestic battery charge, damaged liver). Alos, you can't go wrong stripping to a song that opens with the line "You make me come."

7. "Back Door Man" by The Doors. Almost too eas

I do a nice sloppy first draft like everybody else. And then just work at it and work at it and groom it. I get input from other people.

Unfortunately I don't live by a Target now, so I just go to a regular Starbucks as opposed to a Starbucks nested inside a Target, which is my ideal situation. That works out for me. I like that white noise, those interruptions, and the people around me.

I've been an avid consumer of young adult literature since I was one, and I think some people leave that stuff behind when they become old adults, but I never did. I was always interested in the fantasy world created in those novels.

Juno: Honest to blog?

I feel like I'm part of a generation of people who are stuck in the past and are really self-absorbed. I mean, we're actually taking pictures of ourselves and posting them on Facebook, and keeping in touch with people that should have been out of our lives 15 years ago.

Tabloid photos capture people at their most self-conscious and disoriented; in real life, Paris Hilton is like an elegant paper crane.

I don't think I ever got the hang of the writers' room. I love collaborating with people, but I really do my best work alone, and I think I would want to - if I did something again, I think I'd want to take total ownership the way Aaron Sorkin or David Kelley does.

The stuff I write isn't strictly autobiographical, but it's personal, if that makes any sense. It draws all these little incidents and people out of my life and then contorts them.

People don't have these tidy little redemption arcs in reality the way they do in movies.

There's probably no experience more alienating than fame, other than a terminal illness, where you actually find yourself in a situation that nobody around you can relate to.

Juno MacGuff: Thanks a heap coyote ugly. This cactus-gram stings worse than your abandonment.

There's something magical about spending a Sunday night watching real people at a deli, then watching fake people pretending to be real on TV, then engaging in (arguably) false interaction with (arguably) real people on the Internet. Never at any prior point in time has this been possible.

I've always been a writer, I've always been a storyteller, but I never thought about screenwriting.

People say 'teenage girls aren't so clever. Your characters should be less articulate to reflect our youth.' People who say that aren't spending time with teenagers.

The public's appetite for frothy, flippant blondes has waned, but Paris Hilton still fascinates me.

Juno MacGuff: [yelling through the house] Dad?
Mac MacGuff: What?
Juno MacGuff: Either I just peed my pants or um ...
Mac MacGuff: *Or* ... ?
Juno MacGuff: THUNDERCATS ARE GO!

The primary job for women in Hollywood is still super-attractive actress. That is the most high-profile women's job in Hollywood.

I do not quote my own movies. I think I would be pretty insufferable if I did.

Put your blog out into the world and hope that your talent will speak for itself.

Ah, reality TV: where opportunists delight in exposing opportunism! It's kind of like the indie music scene.

I actually have two children now, and sometimes I wonder if that's it. Because they do make writing and directing more complicated and more difficult, especially now that they're very young.

One nice thing about being a woman in Hollywood is that the women tend to be very close-knit. All of us writers and directors know each other and cling to each other for safety and support, and it's really a completely different vibe than the men experience out here, where they're all trying to murder each other.

I'm not an especially highbrow person, but I have always loved small, quirky, edgy movies.

I want Maggie Gyllenhaal. I don't know why. I don't think she necessarily looks like me or acts like me, I just think she's a cool actress and she could play me, so there you go.

My boyfriend is Italian and from New Jersey, so naturally he was thrilled to meet Joe Pesci.

It's actually much harder to develop a TV show than I had anticipated.

The Rolling Stones are so versatile, they're like the band version of that Infinite Dress they sell on QVC.

There's a weird cloud around you when you're recognizable. It was a brief window for me. I think you have to have a pathological need for attention of any type, negative or positive, to thrive in that kind of situation. And I only want compliments.

Everyone's favorite supper is a gluey carbohydrate-rich concoction known simply as "hotdish" and served in a community Pyrex.

But here is the single greatest thing about the 'Vanity Fair' party: There are uniformed In-N-Out Burger employees circulating the room with trays of cheeseburgers all night long.

Kyle dumped me for some stripper whore who shops at Wet Seal.

Couture gowns are like gremlins; you can't expose them to bright light or get them wet.

As a kid, I spent every summer bent over a stack of books, obsessively writing detailed reports on each one.

I had written the script for Juno and apparently Steven Spielberg had read it. I can't just call him Steven, that's weird ... Mr. Spielberg had read it and he liked it. He asked me if I would write this television show for him and I said, 'Yeah!'

Fact: The new '90210' is cooler than the old '90210.' It's the lithe, streamlined Skipper to the elder series' venerable Barbie. Gone are the traditional parents - they've been replaced by a hipster mom n' pop who get busted necking in the car.

I have never been an ambitious person, and my participation in this industry is a fluke, but only male writers can afford to be coy and self-deprecating.

Juno MacGuff: Nah ... I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?

The one thing I have found about Hollywood is it's a town full of people who believe in themselves, often to a degree where they're what you would call "delusional."

If this whole writing thing doesn't work out, I'll be getting right back on the pole.

For me, I am a huge fan of Sofia Coppola and Lynn Shelton. I love Lena Dunham, like everybody else. I love Kathryn Bigelow.

Los Angeles is often described as the nadir of vapidity, a smog-choked space cradle.

The Ten Worst Songs to Strip To: 1. That Midnight Oil song about aborigines

I've been so lucky - I worked with Jason Reitman twice, who has always been a really strong advocate for my voice, and has always really respected the scripts that I've brought him and is just the coolest.

Above the stage was a glass-floored second stage, which allowed customers to look up and watch another girl dancing overhead. This multidimensional display of poontang reminded me of the 3-D chessboard on Star Trek, which in turn reminded me that I was a huge nerd.

Honestly, this will never happen because she's so much classier than me, but I would love to work with Sofia Coppola.

Everybody knows that I'm not a snob when it comes to pop culture, obviously. I love reality shows.

People are more interested in being visible than they are in loving other people.

I think I might be one of the only people in America, or at least the only person I know, who saw both 'The Dark Knight' and 'Mamma Mia!' on their shared opening weekend.

'Sweet Valley High' is fantastic, fabulous, a little bit campy, and - dare I say it - cinematic.

I am actually able to do other things. I'm not just this writer.

Personally, I consider 'Titanic' the most brilliant example of successful counterprogramming; the film actually countered itself by embedding an epic chick flick within a classic disaster movie.

I wrote a screenplay for a 'Sweet Valley High' adaptation, and it's really amazing to me how many women who are my age have responded to the idea and are excited about the movie.

I think sometimes people really require the satisfaction of closure.

I think when you take people who are damaged and you give them money and freedom, it can be a toxic cocktail.

I think it's pretty obvious that women's stories are not necessarily being told in Hollywood and women are not necessarily being put in the leadership positions they deserve in mainstream film.

I grew up in the Midwest; you don't know any screenwriters. It didn't seem like a realistic career possibility.

The funny thing was that the sisters were hardly nubile, creamy-skinned Lolitas blushing on the bough. In fact, one of them looked like she'd beaten herself with a tire iron during a smallpox-induced hallucination, and the other looked like a close-up photo of a wolf spider.

That's also why comedy and horror are my two favorite genres of film to write, because you get these outbursts of emotion from people, laughter and shock, and it's really thrilling, and I like to be thrilled.

Juno MacGuff: You can never have too many of your favorite one calorie breath mints.