“I love that drag is a way for people to vacation in the gay nightlife, but… it’s quite a different experience to perform for a gay audience than a straight audience.”

When I was on ‘Drag Race,’ it felt like a serious competition going on between drag queens and then Katya and I were also there.

Drag Race’ doesn’t claim to represent drag as a whole. ‘Drag Race’ is a reality show. If you see real drag shows, we just do drag and respect each other’s art and who your real identity is – name, gender, hair color, anything.

I love my life so much. I wouldn’t change anything.

When someone says ‘Yasss queen!’ to me, I turn around and, X-Men style, run through a wall. You’ll never hear from me again.

I think people are slowly realizing that don’t have to be looking in a mirror to enjoy something. And they’re realizing that watching a show with drag queens in it doesn’t make you gay any more then listening to rap makes you black.

I have definitely had guys walk up to me, put their arm around me, and when they walk away, my shoulder smells like taco meat.

I’m not good at anything! I can do, like, two voices.

Something ‘Drag Race’ is really good at is portraying us as artists but also human beings. And normal human beings don’t know everything. They don’t have all the answers.

The best way to create emotional or spiritual distance between me and another person is for them to come up to me and go, ‘yaassssss.’

When I’m in drag, I don’t always want to be spoken to, but I love being looked at. Nobody puts that much work into how they look to be ignored.

Dark comedy helped me survive.

I never check my bank account. I know that sounds crazy. But I don’t know how much is in there. I never know how much is in there. I have an idea – I have a bottom line – but I never look because I always make believe there’s never anything in there.

I’m very proud of my career. A lot of people get their career from the judges of ‘Drag Race’ saying they’re great. I had to go and build that reputation from the ground up.

I think being young and, like, 14, 15, you feel like a weirdo, and playing guitar with my grandpa in my grandma’s kitchen is probably my fondest memories I’ll ever have.

I listened to a lot of what my grandparents listened to: George Jones, Johnny Cash – a lot of old country singers. Patsy Cline.

Mental health and sobriety is not a straight line, and ‘Drag Race’ is a family, and we support our family members through anything.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can’t always hear what people in the audience are saying.

After the band loaded in and the curtain opened, we realized there was exactly one paying customer in the audience.

When you’re doing stand-up, you achieve an intimacy with the audience you can’t get on TV. There’s not a better feeling in the entire world then when you look out and see the audience is identifying with you.

I’ve always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.

Maybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman’s scripts – where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at ’em, and said, “Why won’t they be a real actor?” – maybe they just knew their audience. It’s too bad.

Drawing is the most inalienable medium. It is private; it practically doesn’t have an audience in mind, just the artist’s expression.

Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.

The American audience, having been exposed to a narrowing range of ideas over the decades, often assumes that what they see and hear in the major media is all there is.