“... the Darling fortune is made from a chain of dry cleaning stores, and we’re just cleaning up!” 

- Candy Darling

"The token "gay" character is always so funny, and so fantastic." 
- Ezra Miller

"You can only do so much theater." 

- Victor Garber

"I would take the life-and-times approach, and tell the whole story of the gay movement..."

- Randy Shilts 

"I told you to sell it, not give it away." 

- Jerome Robbins

"Being in the closet is way too much energy and deceit--both for the individual, and the people who must lie for them." 

- Charlie David

"From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there is not much "gay" about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was--at least outwardly--totally hostile to any hint of that variation of lifestyle...Gradually, the general attitude that I'd perceived around be began to change, and presently I find that there has emerged a distinctly healthy acceptance of different social styles of living." 

- James Randi 

"I don't consider myself as a female impersonator. I like to be more androgynous. It's an extravaganza." 

- Nina Flowers

"It's a motherfuckin walk-off!" 

- Daniel Vosovic 

"I work in an industry with some of the meanest people who have ever walked the face of the earth...But the way I see it, I have a responsibility to do the most I can do, the way I know how." 

- Kevyn Aucoin 

"Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you. Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision and you have no rights in our lovemaking." 

- Derek Jarman

"As a teenager, I had to struggle alone to learn about myself and what it meant to be gay. Now for 48 years, I've had the satisfaction of working with other gay people all across the country to get the bigots off of our backs, to oil the closet door hinges, to change prejudiced hearts and minds, and to show that gay love is good for us, and the rest of the world too." 

- Barbara Gittings 

"The only thing I can give to young gay people is that when I was I was growing up there were no role models that were "blokey", that were severely masculine. Everybody was flamboyant and camp, and I remember thinking, 'that's not me, so even though I think I'm gay, I don't think I fit into this world'. I'm glad to know I do, now." 

- Russell Tovey

"All of my fears, everything that I was scared of...[coming out] was the complete opposite." 

- J. P. Calderon 

"In this society, if a man is called a woman that's the biggest insult he could get. Is that because women are considered something less? To me, it doesn't really matter, I don't really have that sort of strong gender identity--I identify as what I am." 

- Andreja Pejic 

"The journey I'm on right now...I just recently came out. I'm starting to live my life as a full female. This is my life." 

- Kristin Beck

"If political candidates do not support testing for HIV or AIDS, don't vote for them. If political candidates do not support the use of condoms, don't vote for them."

- Zackie Achmat

"I was the first unmarried woman to climb in New Zealand, and in consequence I received all the hard knocks until one day when I awoke more or less famous in the mountaineering world, after which I could and did do exactly as seemed to me best."

- Freda du Faur

"I was told women's clothes always make a wire-act more impressive...and I was asked if I would mind dressing up as a girl. I didn't, and that's how it began."

- Barbette

"I'm bi--so fucking what?" 

- Corin Tucker

"I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs." 

- Anne Lister 

"Do I like women, sexually? Yeah, I do. Totally. I've always considered myself bisexual." 

- Drew Barrymore

"I want to be a spoiled, rich white girl living in the suburbs." 

- Venus Xtravaganza 

"I think that it's a crime to say you are bored when time is so precious." 

- Karl Lagerfeld 

"My sexuality is not made-up. For a bisexual, it's not about gender. That's not the deciding factor to who they're attracted to." 

- Anna Paquin

"I'll go through life either first class or third, but never second." 

- Noel Coward

"You can either have the Resurrection, or Liberace. You can't have both." 

- Liberace 

"[My goal is] to write a novel about a woman who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiful nor disgusting." 

- May Sarton 

"My staged photographs are oversized, and often recall well-known scenes from Art History and Western Civilization, combined with personal experiences based on my life as a gay youth growing up in a small town on the periphery of Israeli society." 

- Adi Nes

"I've slept with girls, I've slept with guys, so I guess that's [bisexual] what they call it! I'm not anti trying to use language to simplify our lives." 

- Amanda Palmer

"I'm bisexual, not gay. Bisexual." 

- Ronnie Kray

"In this country [the United States], you don't know where those planes are headed. Well, this one seems to be headed in the right direction anyway..." 

- Ola Salo

"I am becoming much more aware of the movement. The importance of movement is intensified when a painting becomes a performance. The performance (the act of painting) becomes as important as the resulting painting." 

- Keith Haring  

"You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else." 

- Radclyffe Hall 

"What will I be doing in twenty years' time? I'll be dead, darling! Are you crazy?"

- Freddie Mercury

"I want to thank Anna [Nicole Smith] for making me famous. When you think of Anna, think of red, white, and pink hearts. She was love as she taught love." 

- Bobby Trendy 

"I'm not asking that people accept homosexuality. I'm not asking that they believe like I do that it's inborn. I'm not asking that. All I'm saying is don't let these children suffer without a family because of your bias."

- Rosie O'Donnell

"No one ever asked directly [if I were gay]."

- Dan Gillespie Sells

"I'm a hopeful cynic." 

- Tracy Chapman 

"I'm not really an activist, although I am aware that there are some political acts one can do that actually make a difference. I think my coming out as a gay man was probably one of the most valuable things I've done in my life. I don't think any actor [at the time] had done so voluntarily, and I think it helped to change the culture." 

- Simon Callow 

"I have the same friends, and the same bad habits." 

- Nate Silver 

"It is troublesome sometimes when people get up in your face in public, you know? And say 'how could you, how dare you?' Well, they don't know me." 

- Shepard Smith 

"I knew exactly who I was...which sucked, not having words for it, and being told I was something else...not transgender." 

- Lucas Silveira 

"[I want] codeine...and another Bourbon."

- Tallulah Bankhead

"I am interested in loving, beautiful, sexy images...I also want the images to be a turn on, create an adrenaline high, a rush of desire so intense that the act of looking is sexual."

- Tee Corinne 

"I don't believe that if I came out as bisexual the world will change. But it's really important for people to be truthful about who they are and fight for equality. We need to help the world usher itself into the next phase." 

- Olivia Thirlby 

"In my drawings I have no political statements to make, no ideology. I am thinking only about the picture itself. The whole Nazi philosophy, the racism and all that, is hateful to me, but of course I drew them anyway--they had the sexiest uniforms!" 

- Touko Laaksonen

"I have surrendered again, without much struggle, to my depraved inclinations." 

- Grand Duke Konstantin of Russia 

"I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like."

- David Sedaris

"I don't have any secrets that I need to keep from anyone." 

- Frank Ocean