I've always tried to keep reinventing myself and to keep appealing to young people and when I go to colleges now and do my spoken-word show it's astounding to me how I get older and the audience gets younger. To me, that's the best compliment. That's better than money, that's better than anything.

I went to the Vatican once - it was a bad idea. I went into the bookshop and I bought hideous, pious postcards and then I asked for a receipt, and the nun said, "We don't give receipts at the Vatican." Which threw me into a rage of like, "I guess not, so you can take this money and funnel it into anti-homosexual groups!" People had to drag me out of there. It's not good for me to go into the Vatican.

I live in San Francisco, I live in Provincetown. They're all the same, apart from Baltimore. Baltimore's the only cheap place left.

Not wanting anyone to pop my bubble by speaking to me, I immediately began reading Lesbian Nuns, and that did the trick. No one attempted small talk.

I'd rather have a daughter in a whorehouse than a son in the police force,' Esther used to rage to anyone who would listen.

I've signed peoples' parole cards at book signings and it's very touching.

Life is a rotten lottery.