I got a job when I was 15 because my allowance was about $20 a week which in New York was impossible. So I used to waitress across the street from where I grew up.

If you dont have any shadows you're not in the light

Pop music will never be low brow.

The whole point of what I do - the monster ball, the music, the performance art aspect of it, I wanna create a space for my fans where they can feel free and they can celebrate because I didn't fit in in high school and I felt like a freak, so I like to create this atmosphere for my fans where they feel like they have a freak in me to hang out with and they don't feel alone.

The Monster Ball is by nature a protest: A youth church experience to speak out and celebrate against all forms of discrimination + prejudice.

I want you to walk out of here tonight not loving me more, but loving yourselves more.

I'm not interested, Larry, in being a perfect, plastic pop singer that looks great in bikinis and is on the cover of every magazine. I'm more interested in helping my fans to love who they are, and helping them to reject prejudice and reject those things that they're taught from society to not like themselves, to feel like freaks, that they're not wanted.