Quotes

"All my life I wanted to look like Elizabeth Taylor. Now Elizabeth Taylor looks like me".

"He's one of my finest leading ladies" - Tab Hunter [who co-starred with Divine in Polyester (1981)].

People who used to make fun are now fans. I had the last laugh.

Of course the last thing my parents wanted was a son who wears a cocktail dress that glitters, but they've come around to it.

My favorite part of dressing in drag is getting out of it. Drag is my work clothes. I only put it on when someone pays me to.

I think I've always been respectable. What I do onstage is not what I do in my private life... It's an act... It's how I make my living. People laugh, and it's not hurting anyone.

"Divine" and "Glenn Milstead" are both just names. Glenn is the name I was brought up with, Divine is the name I've been using for the past 23 years. I guess it's always Glenn and it's always Divine. Do you mean the character Divine or the person Divine? You see, it gets very complicated. There's the Divine you're talking to now and there's the character Divine, which is just something I do to make a living. She doesn't really exist at all.

[on Pink Flamingos (1972)'s infamous final scene, in which he consumes dog feces]: [People think that I] run around doing it all the time. I've received boxes of dog shit - plastic dog shit. I have gone to parties where people just sit around and talk about dog shit because they think it's what I want to talk about.

[1973] Divine. That's my name. It's the name John [John Waters] gave me. I like it. That's what everybody calls me now, even my close friends. Not many of them call me Glenn at all anymore, which I don't mind. They can call me whatever they want. They call me fatso, and they call me asshole, and I don't care. You always change your name when you're in the show business. Divine has stuck as my name. Did you ever look it up in the dictionary? I won't even go into it. It's unbelievable.

[on Pink Flamingos (1972)'s infamous final scene]: I followed that dog around for three hours just zooming in on its asshole.