"WILL ONE of you old queens please bring this old queen a large gin and tonic." — What England's Queen Mother reportedly says sometimes at midmorning to "a lot of elderly screamers on her staff at Clarence House," according to writer Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, August issue.
"It would be rare to go to a party in France of all men. Very rare. It'd be much more likely to go to a party where there were a lot of straight women and gay men but everybody is flirting with everybody." — Famed gay author Edmund White in a June interview with this column.
"I'm the Frank Sinatra of gay people. You either love Frank or you hate him and there's no in-between. It's the same way with me. I think Scott Thompson has the same problem. I think Sandra Bernhard has the same problem. If you view it as a problem. We're constantly recognized and lauded by the mainstream, but gay people hate us for some bizarre reason, and it's kind of odd because we've been out longer than anybody." — Comic/singer/actress Lea DeLaria to the San Francisco Bay Times, June 22.
"I have been, in a very strange way, this sort of sex object for a lot of lesbians. Especially young lesbians. They throw their bras and panties at me onstage. It's happened to me all over the world." — DeLaria.
"I just want my tombstone to say she left all women satisfied. Not one girl has complained yet. That'll be my legacy. She fucked more girls than Warren Beatty. The Warren Beatty of the lesbian entertainment world. That'll be my legacy. That's it." — DeLaria.
"Gays and lesbians are being so rapidly assimilated into the mainstream of American life that it sometimes feels as if we may drown. Much of what we think of as gay culture—the attitudes, hairstyles, sex, and lefty politics that set us apart—is being rapidly undermined by a mainstream culture that wants to see us assimilated, as well as by gays and lesbians who want to assimilate." — Dan Savage writing in Seattle's The Stranger, June 22.
"What's to become of all those gay bowling leagues once gay bowlers realize they can bowl in bigger, better leagues? What's going to happen to gay papers now that gay writers can find work at papers that offer a living wage? What happens to the gay Democratic club when the membership of the regular county organization will elect an openly gay chair?" — Savage.
"The pride parade is, in fact, increasingly unbearable, general good cheer notwithstanding. The pride parade is simply one of those bloated, tired institutions that can't die because it has established itself so firmly as a bloated, tired institution." — Steve Wiecking writing in Seattle's The Stranger, June 22.
"Out of the chatrooms and into the streets! I do think that there are ways that we are connected through the Internet, but it's no substitute for actually getting out on the street and getting on your feet." — Comedian Kate Clinton to the Michigan gay newspaper Between The Lines, June 15.
"What a fucking idiot." — Bryant Gumbel, co-host of CBS TV's Early Show, immediately after interviewing the anti-gay Family Research Council's Robert Knight June 29 about the Supreme Court's anti-gay Boy Scouts ruling. Only the first two words of the remark were audible on the air but Knight provided reporters with the rest of the sentence. The Associated Press watched a tape of the broadcast and said it "appears to support [ Knight's ] contention." Knight has been demanding an apology from the network.
"I can see that the loneliest gay men I know are not in the boonies; they're in San Francisco. They're in New York City. They're surrounded by gay men, they can go out and find a sex partner seven nights a week, but they can't seem to form a relationship no matter how hard they think they're trying. They begin another relationship every week. They end them because they get early misgivings and worried over imperfection, and because they're not quite ready to give up cruising." — Chris Fox writing in Los Angeles' Fab, July 7.
"I was misquoted and misrepresented and distorted by the media. It seems very conspiratorial, if you want to get 'X-Files' about it." — Dr. Laura Schlessinger to the Washington Post, June 28.
"My dad was an actor and that was very influential but I was always drawn to that even when I was really little. I was kind of a big weirdo ... I would shut myself off in my room and go off into weird territories alone as a child. ... My Dad was a very theatrical flamboyant person. I was influenced by his ability to just let it go and kind of go off into weird directions." — Will & Grace's Megan Mullally ( Karen ) to the Seattle Gay News. June 16.
"IF YOU can explain what muff-diving is, I can answer your question right away. 'Have you ever had sex with another woman?' No. 'That's what muff-diving is.' If someone wants to go muff-diving, that's up to them—nothing wrong with it." — A Q&A with hip-hop singer Lil' Kim in August's Vanity Fair.
"AFTER HE BID his artist friends good night [ artist Francis ] Bacon liked ... young men who indulged his desire to be beaten." — Vanity Fair.
