"My feelings for women are deep, from the heart, and sensual. I'm a woman's woman. I'm not sexual with women, but it doesn't mean I don't love them deeply." -- Tori Amos on being called a "dyke icon." OUT Magazine, November 2002.
"Sometimes I look at another woman and I have to say, 'Right, then!' I don't know if I wish I could sample that. I'm not quite sure." -- Amos commenting on the fact that women sometimes make her briefly question her sexuality. OUT Magazine, November 2002.
"Indian country is homophobic, so many Indians hope that I'm not gay. Why don't they want me to be gay? Well, I'd obviously be much less cool, right? And heck, they might have to kick me out of the club. Man, homophobia makes me wish I sucked dick." -- Openly straight, writer-director-poet Sherman Alexie, The Business of Fancydancing, in OUT Magazine, November 2002, in regards to Native Americans' reaction to his movie about a gay Native American.
"Yeah, I guess so. I mean no. To tell you the truth, I think sexuality is probably fluid. Intimacy is about being with a person, not being with a sex." -- Actor Julianne Moore to OUT Magazine, November 2002 when asked if she is 100% straight.
"I'm fascinated by these guys on GHB or whatever drug that is. I've always said I'd be afraid to take it because I'd stay home and rape myself all night long. But it's amazing, because it is The Stepford Wives. It is a new tribe that I'm not against, because I like watching it. Right now there are a million of them in town, and there's no water. You can't find water, because they have to keep drinking water. In the supermarket it's like The Day After." -- Director John Waters to OUT Magazine, November 2002, from his summer apartment in P-Town.
"There was a time I played on both sides of the street. Now I go straight down the middle of the street." -- Whoopie Goldberg, speaking to a New York City Hall Gay Pride ceremony June 27, as quoted in Gay City News and reprinted in Curve November 2002.
"The best thing I did was to see clearly enough to fall in love with Tammy [ Lynn Michaels ] . I'm actually more committed than ever." -- Melissa Etheridge to Curve Magazine, November 2002.
"This whole year has been this amazing growth and finding out things about myself and strength in myself. If you've ever been in a long-term relationship and had your world turned upside down and then found yourself in a much better place than you ever could have imagined. ... [ It's ] because of Tammy, because of myself, because of taking the negative energy out and finally standing up and going, 'No, that's not going to be my life.'" -- Etheridge to Curve Magazine, November 2002.
"I'm not particularly fond of kissing strange men--contrary to popular belief!" -- Madonna to Vanity Fair, October 2002, about the lack of sex and nakedness in her new movie Swept Away.
"I'd like it if people liked it but I'm not going to slit my wrists if they don't. Especially since it's a labor of love between me and my husband." -- Madonna in Vanity Fair, October 2002, commenting on her new movie, Swept Away, with director husband, Guy Ritchie.
"I would have been a lot more selfish. I had no kids, so it was a very 'Me-me-me' universe. Not thinking before I spoke, before I acted ... I was going through life robotically, even though I thought I was a badass, motherfucking, rebel, outside-of-it-all person. I was still a sheep in many ways. I wasn't a total pig or anything. I was a decent human being, but I just didn't think of the big picture. My life was a very small-picture." -- Madonna commenting on what her life was like seven years ago. Vanity Fair, October 2002.
"Quitting the Boy Scouts was probably one of the most painful experiences I've ever had to endure. But they are wrong and you are right. We are right and we have never been more right than we are right now, in this country and at this time." -- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg receiving an award from the gay organization Human Rights Campaign Oct. 13 in Washington, D.C.
"I think if anything I had underestimated people's homophobia. The tabloids have been like piranhas round a rotting corpse. There's no doubt [ my character ] Nan's process of self-discovery is the most challenging part for a young actress I have ever read, but then you get all these male journalists asking you what it's like to kiss a girl. I just think, 'You're a bloody man, you tell me!' Everyone is fixated on the fact it involves two birds snogging." -- Rachel Stirling, daughter of Dame Diana Rigg, on her role in the controversial new lesbian-themed BBC series Tipping The Velvet, to the Guardian, Oct. 8.
"Even today I speak in states where homosexuality is still illegal. Oh. I'm in one of them now. I forgot where I was. Imagine that." -- Olympic champion diver Greg Louganis speaking at the University of Utah, Oct. 11.
"The reason you don't come out of the closet is that it has been beaten into you on a deep level that there is something wrong with who you are. And there is no other reason." -- Actor Harvey Fierstein to the Houston gay publication OutSmart, September issue.
"As far as I can tell he [ President Bush ] doesn't do anything. He's like the Queen of England--he waves and they try to keep him from not falling down or killing himself on junk food. And I do understand that he's the nicest man in the world, but he's not running the country. And I get a little nervous about an America that is run by corporate America, which obviously we are now finding out. Those who didn't believe it are finding out." -- Gay actor Harvey Fierstein to the Houston gay publication OutSmart, September issue.
"I think people can tell how we all feel about each other on that show. The timing is superb. You cannot have that timing unless you respect each other." -- Shelley Morrison who plays maid Rosario on Will & Grace to the Dallas Voice, Sept. 20.
