“He (son Jason) doesn’t see me as a (gay) icon, he sees me as his mother who touches his hair too much. No, I love being an icon to anybody. Equal rights, you know?”

When they tried me out as a host on TV, I found that I just couldn’t be that gregarious person. I was stranger than that.

I have one son. Of everything I’ve done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you.

I’ve always liked working really hard and then doing nothing in particular. So, consequently, I didn’t overexpose myself; I guess I maintained a kind of mystery. I wasn’t ambitious.

I still like my antique clothes.

I love things that are indescribable, like the taste of an avocado or the smell of a gardenia.

If I hear a record once, I usually never listen to it again. I rarely listen to music – unless it’s Billie Holiday.

Oh God, don’t envy me, I have my own pains.

Being a celebrity is a no-win situation. If you get along with your co-star you’re having an affair, if you don’t you’re having a feud.

I just don’t like the idea of her singing my songs. Who the hell does she thinks she is? The world doesn’t need another Streisand! (on Diana Ross)

I can take any truth; just don’t lie to me.

Men are allowed to have passion and commitment for their work… a woman is allowed that feeling for a man, but not her work.

Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: ‘I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.’

Life’s too short. Start with Dessert!

I don’t like the word ‘superstar’. It has ridiculous implications. These words – star, stupor, superstar, stupid star – they’re misleading. It’s a myth.

You could move.’ —“Dear Abby” responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.

My family spent many years sleeping side by side in the same room. It’s important for me to not separate myself from them or to say that I’ve suffered more than they have because I’m gay.

Any gay person understands at some point that he or she has to disappear, to become invisible. That’s very difficult.

I’m a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.

I’m just going to say I’m not gay. I really, really like women.

I’m a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.

I never had a low self-esteem that would make me gay. At one point, though, the reverse happened. Being homosexual led me to have a loss of self-esteem when I first became aware of society’s attitudes about homosexuality.

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.