Cassandra Peterson quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Luckily, it's one of my favorite movies [ Night Of The Living Dead]. I never get tired of watching it.

To me, the scariest movie ever made to this day is 'The Exorcist.' It still scares the living hell out of me, and it's because of the fantasy element. It's the exorcism. It's the Devil. It's not a guy breaking into your house trying to torture you or cut your whatever off. Those kinds of movies don't do it for me, and I don't call them horror.

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.

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.

Horror, for me, has to involve some sort of fantasy. Horror is something that is in your dreams or your nightmares.

Ive made a career off of Halloween.

At least I get my little black dress cleaned once in awhile.

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.

[Vincent Price] was the funniest damn guy I ever met.

I knew I would grow up and wear a costume one day, and that's exactly what happened.

[Vincent Price] taught me how to cook fish in my dishwasher.

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.

I always say there are no coincidences.

Women like to be scared, but they don't like the blood and the gore, and especially movies that have violence and torture involving women. Women don't want to see that, I can tell you for damn sure right now.

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.

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.

Actually, when I was little I even dreamed about riding a black cat.

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.

[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.

People always say, 'Who is your audience?' and I could never put a finger on it - and I wouldn't want to put a finger on it.

Not a time with him passed that I didn't say, "You should've been a comedian." [Vincent Price] was hilarious. He was just such a quick, funny wit. I don't think most people would think that about him, and it was really surprising to me. But man, the guy had a brilliant wit.

I am very, very anti-slasher.

I was your typical struggling actress. I went to every audition, took a million acting, dancing and singing lessons and spent years wondering where my next meal was coming from.

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.

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.

I vaguely remember doing [all my] photo sessions, but definitely there were some surprises there for me.

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.

I'm really proud and happy that we finally got it together thanks to Tweeterhead, which is the company that put it together for me. It's something that I always wanted to do, but really did not have the time to work on myself

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.

Maybe one of the strangest opportunities was I got to ring the closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange.

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.

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.

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.

I had these couple of hippie guy friends who were super broke and living in the attic of somebody's house and they were like, "We don't have any food, man." And so I decided to go to the grocery store and steal chicken pot pie. And I stuck it inside my clothes. I took a couple frozen chicken pot pies and stuck them inside my pants, and I got caught walking out of the store. And they took me in the back room, and - luckily, I was 14, but I had a fake ID saying I was 18, so they didn't call my parents.

People were really staying away from me. And that's kind of when I split up with all my best friends at school - they were going, "Something's happened to her, she's totally weird" - and found my new friends, who were Beatles fans.

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.

[I] go to the Golden Globes, the Grammys, all the awards shows. Just stuff you would never get to do as a regular person were things that were really exciting for me.

I got to do the Rose Bowl Parade - which is the largest parade in America - with a float. That was a fun opportunity.

[Vincent Price] did Oscar Wilde on Broadway, and I think he probably did it because he was almost like an Oscar Wilde. He had that brilliant humor.

I have a lot of good days I'd like to relive.

I can't stand VPL, visible panty line. So I'm wondering how many other people out there are wearing thongs.

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.

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.

It certainly changes your life. So that may be a cliché, but I think any woman would say that [day when her baby born] would have been the most special day of their life.

The labor part wasn't so great, but seeing [my daughter] for the first time was pretty awesome. I mean, how does it get better than another actual person popping out of your stomach, you know?

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.

I hate to sound cliché, but it would probably be the day my daughter was born. That was a pretty amazing experience.

When Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark came out, I got to go to Japan and Australia and France, Italy, Germany, everywhere with the movie. That was great, because I love traveling.

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.

When I was a kid, my favorite after-school snack was hominy and pickled pigs feet.

A lot of people bring it to me at conventions. At first I was going, "I can't sign that. That's not me." And now I just say, "Eh, whatever."

I do not remember the '70s, for who-knows-what-all reasons.

I remember the '60s, I remember the '80s, but somehow I went directly from the '60s to the '80s.

I sort of don't remember anything I did in the '70s.

I would just think that I would remember modeling for the cover of an album with Tom Waits, who I've always loved.

One of the things that's kind of persistent is that I am the model on the cover of Tom Waits' album, Small Change.

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.

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?

I believed that lemmings really jump off of cliffs.

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.

There are a lot of other movies I've done multiple times, like Werewolf Of Washington, where I really get tired of watching it.

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.

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.

I ended up spending some time with Jimi Hendrix and hanging out with him, and that was beyond awesome.

I just chased bands all over the country. The biggest one I saw was Jimi Hendrix.

The best was The Yardbirds. I still love The Yardbirds and The Zombies.

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.

I just count myself really lucky to have a career that I love and that continues to pay my rent.

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.

[Brian Hyland autograph] was what got me started on going to concerts, because from then on, I was at every concert for everybody.

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.

I was a complete mod and had to wear mod clothes and have a Beatle haircut, and I tried to talk in a Liverpool accent.

When I was a kid... I don't know which was more embarrassing, when I was really into The Beatles or when I was a hippie.

I've met a lot of famous people. I'm lucky enough to have been able to be Elvira. I would probably have to say the most famous is probably Elvis Presley, though. I spent an evening, a night, and part of the next day with him.

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.

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.