1.
Since I always go to work as Elvira, maybe a giant version of a cat. A black cat. I love cats and I think Elvira would look really good sitting on one.
Cassandra Peterson
2.
If I retire doing the character, I don't think the character has to retire. There will still be caricatures of Elvira. You know, Dracula still works, and he's dead.
Cassandra Peterson
3.
I love the old movies from my past, when I was growing up. I just have a special place in my heart for them. They kind of feel like comfort food to me, so watching them is just cozy and warm.
Cassandra Peterson
4.
The biggest surprise was a picture my mom sent me, just about the time that we were about to wrap up the book, of me as a 5-year-old dressed in my first Halloween costume that she made for me. I said, "What's this? I never saw this photo." And she said, "We made you this black-and-orange Halloween costume out of crepe paper" - we were too poor to have fabric back then - "and you wanted to go as the Queen Of Halloween." And I was like, "What?" And she said, "Yeah, the Princess Of Halloween, the Queen Of Halloween, something like that.
Cassandra Peterson
5.
Actually, when I was little I even dreamed about riding a black cat.
Cassandra Peterson
6.
When I was into The Beatles, I cut my hair into a Beatle haircut, which looked so ridiculously stupid with my little cat-eye glasses that I wore.
Cassandra Peterson
7.
Horror, for me, has to involve some sort of fantasy. Horror is something that is in your dreams or your nightmares.
Cassandra Peterson
8.
Every year, I have to spend another hour working out. Pretty soon I'll be spending eight hours working out just to fit in the costume. I have the feeling that the minute I stop doing the character, boom, Roseanne Barr.
Cassandra Peterson
9.
I had this grand idea that Elvira's kind of the Santa Claus of Halloween - at the malls, you'd have an Elvira there. Girls would dress as Elvira just like guys dress as Santa Claus, and it's not the real thing, but they'll pose for pictures, sign autographs. Of course, I couldn't go around to every mall, so we'd have to get more Elviras.
Cassandra Peterson
10.
People come up to me at conventions and say, 'I was such an outcast, I felt like such a geek, and when I saw you, you made me feel like such a normal person.' It's my favorite thing to hear, because that's how I felt when I was a kid. If Goth would've been around, I would've definitely been Goth. But there wasn't such a thing, so I was just weird.
Cassandra Peterson
11.
If ever there was a holiday that deserves to be commercialized, it's Halloween. We haven't taken it away from kids. We've just expanded it so that the kid in adults can enjoy it, too.
Cassandra Peterson
12.
I knew I would grow up and wear a costume one day, and that's exactly what happened.
Cassandra Peterson
13.
I've probably said a million times in my life something about, "All those people are just lemmings. They'd follow each other off a cliff." Well, no such thing.
Cassandra Peterson
14.
When I was Elvira, it was probably the phase of my hair getting too high. I thought that if really high hair was good, then really higher hair was even better. So I just started having my hair get higher and higher. In some of the pictures, we had to cut off the picture because it was like Marge Simpson. So that was embarrassing. The wig phase.
Cassandra Peterson
15.
I think the strangest thing probably is when I went to Japan, and I don't know what the hell I was eating, but there was this one thing that seemed to be in a lot of soups and things there - I always called it pond scum. It looked exactly like the green stuff that floats on top of a pond. I would say, "Oh my God, this has pond scum in it!" I would eat it, to be polite, because we were usually with Japanese people and I didn't want to gag or spit it out or anything. And I still don't know what it was.
Cassandra Peterson
16.
I can't tell you how exciting it was, because Vincent Price had made a huge impression on me when I was a little kid. I just loved him in films. And so meeting him and becoming friends with him was a big deal for me.
Cassandra Peterson
17.
Luckily, it's one of my favorite movies [ Night Of The Living Dead]. I never get tired of watching it.
Cassandra Peterson
18.
I ended up spending some time with Jimi Hendrix and hanging out with him, and that was beyond awesome.
Cassandra Peterson
19.
I have a thing about underwear. I have to wear thongs. Since I was a showgirl in Las Vegas, and I was wearing G-strings all the time, I got this thing where I cannot stand to have on regular underwear. It drives me out of my mind.
Cassandra Peterson
20.
How would Elvira run the state of California? Well, there isn't much I could do that is worse than what Arnold Schwarzenegger has done. Running it into the damn ground. If I was running the whole nation? I would have free Netflix movies for everyone.
Cassandra Peterson
21.
It is so hard nowadays to find a movie that I like. I don't mind blood and gore. But I mind when its a slasher film, and its some guy looking for women. I am opposed to that kind of thing. Blood and gore? I love that kind of thing.
Cassandra Peterson
22.
[Vincent Price] had a fish recipe where he wrapped [the fish] in aluminum foil and put in these herbs. And then you put it in the dishwasher and then you wash your dishes, and when you're done, your fish is steamed and it's perfect. But he was very sophisticated as far as art and food and all of that went.
Cassandra Peterson
23.
I'm driving down the freeway the other day, on my way to Knott's Scary Farm probably, and I hear this report on NPR that the whole lemmings thing was faked in the 1950s. They were shooting a wildlife documentary in the '50s, they found a group of lemmings, and the crew chased them all off a cliff. No lemming has ever jumped off a cliff, purposefully, ever. Isn't that unbelievable?
Cassandra Peterson
24.
When I lived in Las Vegas, I was meeting everybody: Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones - we won't go there - but all these people that were working in Vegas a million years ago, way before I was Elvira.
Cassandra Peterson
25.
There's a lot that I watch over and over. But I have to say, because of my line of work as a horror-movie hostess, I've probably seen Night Of The Living Dead more than any movie. I've probably seen it more than George A. Romero.
Cassandra Peterson
26.
People think being Elvira is a lot of fun - and it is - but I was doing a lot more bizarre stuff before then, just being a dancer and a showgirl and traveling around Italy in a band and working for Playboy Club, and later being a model and meeting a million and one people and being kind of a groupie... It's all been really interesting.
Cassandra Peterson
27.
I would love to do something like 'Tosh.0,' where I host Internet clips. I did host 'Talk Soup,' which is similar. I love doing that, making fun of video clips on the Internet.
Cassandra Peterson
28.
I love, love, love music - have since I was a kid, and I'm still really into music - and I became a singer because I was too stupid to learn how to play an instrument, I guess.
Cassandra Peterson
29.
At least I get my little black dress cleaned once in awhile.
Cassandra Peterson
30.
The best was The Yardbirds. I still love The Yardbirds and The Zombies.
Cassandra Peterson
31.
I remember the '60s, I remember the '80s, but somehow I went directly from the '60s to the '80s.
Cassandra Peterson
32.
I sort of don't remember anything I did in the '70s.
Cassandra Peterson
33.
I would just think that I would remember modeling for the cover of an album with Tom Waits, who I've always loved.
Cassandra Peterson
34.
I think, cumulatively, I probably have done more photo sessions than just about everyone. Maybe as much as a supermodel. I know they model all the time, but have they done it for 35 years? I don't think so.
Cassandra Peterson
35.
One of my favorite people I got to meet was my childhood idol, Vincent Price. I got to not only meet him, but become friendly with him before he passed away.
Cassandra Peterson
36.
It's in the public domain. That's one of the reasons I do it so much. But luckily, it's a brilliant film [ Night Of The Living Dead]. Every horror aficionado must see that film at least once.
Cassandra Peterson
37.
I just count myself really lucky to have a career that I love and that continues to pay my rent.
Cassandra Peterson
38.
When I was a kid, my favorite after-school snack was hominy and pickled pigs feet.
Cassandra Peterson
39.
My first ones were The Young Rascals. I made out with Dino Danelli, the drummer, in the alley behind the City Auditorium. Then I met Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. This is all way, way back in the day. Later I got in the big leagues, like chasing around The Rolling Stones. And I hid in the bus for Paul Revere & The Raiders. And The Zombies.
Cassandra Peterson
40.
I chased every band around the world. Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, you name it. I could just go on and on. It was my hobby, my pastime, and my obsession for several years.
Cassandra Peterson
41.
I loved Wilson Pickett, so I just went on from there. I became sort of a semi-groupie because, I don't know, I got bitten by the music bug.
Cassandra Peterson
42.
[Brian Hyland autograph] was what got me started on going to concerts, because from then on, I was at every concert for everybody.
Cassandra Peterson
43.
Brian Hyland just happened to be playing in our town and that song [ "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini"] was really big. And I got to go back by the stage door, and he autographed a piece of paper for me and I just, I went crazy.
Cassandra Peterson
44.
I was probably about 13 or 14, and I went by myself to the City Auditorium in Colorado Springs and saw the guy who wrote and sang "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini." Brian something. And I got to meet him and he signed an autograph for me, a little piece of paper. Brian Hyland! It was so bizarre.
Cassandra Peterson
45.
There are a lot of other movies I've done multiple times, like Werewolf Of Washington, where I really get tired of watching it.
Cassandra Peterson
46.
It's weird. I guess I got so used to [g-strings] when I was really young that I just couldn't stand it anymore.
Cassandra Peterson
47.
I had a dream about riding a black cat, and then the next day I was at this antique mart, and I found this little devil riding a black cat - an Austrian bronze, tiny little thing. It was super tiny. And it was kind of like, "Oh my God, my dream came true." Except it was a devil, of course. Not me.
Cassandra Peterson
48.
I felt like I kind of got to know [Elvis Presley], and got a little peek inside what was going on there. That was pretty amazing.
Cassandra Peterson
49.
I vaguely remember doing [all my] photo sessions, but definitely there were some surprises there for me.
Cassandra Peterson
50.
I have a lot of good days I'd like to relive, but that [ the day my daughter was born] was one that's still with me.
Cassandra Peterson