by Rex Wockner
'I live in a rural area of Colorado. We have farmers, horses—and families that I meet at town meetings and at the feed store. In the last five years, people have seen the show, subscribed to Showtime and come up to me, standing tall, and said, 'I have a lesbian sister—no one talks about it but I feel good telling you.' They love to mention—with pride—that I am in a show called 'The L Word' and they are much more knowledgeable about bisexual and transgender people too. If it is happening in the microcosm of a small town in Colorado, it's happening across the country and around the world.' — Actress Pam Grier to Los Angeles' Lesbian News, February issue.
'I hope I'm heading in the direction of being a good old gay person! I think it means being the best version of 62 I can be, not lamenting that I'm not 35. There is some wisdom that comes with age if you've been listening at all to the universe.' — Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin to the Oregon gay newspaper Just Out, Feb. 2. Maupin's new book, Michael Tolliver Lives, will be released in June.
'If you were trying to promote yourself as Anderson Cooper, are you gay first and foremost, or are you Anderson Cooper? If he does agree to talk about it, well then you can't talk about anything else, and no one wants to talk about anything else, which is understandable. They've got someone prepared to talk about it, so they're like little kids—every journalist just wanting to know more and more and more, and as you're talking about it you're draining everyone of interest in you. Then people start thinking, 'Oh, my God, he's such a bore—I wish he'd shut up about being fucking gay, these fucking fags.' And then you trigger another phobia, which is the impression that gay men and lesbians never stop going on about it.' — Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue.
'When she [ Madonna ] fixed you with her regard, there was a tenderness and warmth that made your skin bump, but when she looked away, it was like sunbathing on a cold day and suddenly a cloud comes. ... She had the cupid-bow lips of a silent-screen star, and it was obvious that she was playing with Sean [ Penn's ] cock throughout the meal [ we were sharing ] .' — Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue.
'For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy and strategy and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party or gay people or immigrants.' — U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Feb. 10 in Springfield, Ill.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley