I think I started out okay but with AIDS came a great deal of silence about gayness and this period of lose and morning, but at the same time a kind of feeling like you wanted to get back into the closet because being gay was such a terrible thing at that point.

I had been taking various lessons. I've also had a lot of incredible singers give me a ton of great advice. From Cyndi Lauper, who kind of taught me the basics, and I've also worked with Bird. She's a tremendous coach and she often coaches the contestants on 'American Idol.' I've had a great amount of support.

I've spent so much time feeling ugly and being treated as ugly as a result. But I changed my attitude and said, “I’m beautiful because I love everybody as much as I can. I’m beautiful because I have wonderful friends. And I’m beautiful because I say I am. I’ve earned it, and I’m gonna be it.

I urge you all today, especially today during these times of chaos and war, to love yourself without reservations and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather.

I think if somebody does something stupid, it's okay to make fun of them, but [celebrities] have also gotten very conscious about social media, kind of like the Catholic Church in the 1500s.

The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.

I think that sometimes people [who overreact or lash out] will hang on to their point just because they're so embarrassed that they made it. They won't set it down because they are the authors of these [disproportionate responses] and they have a lot to be embarrassed about.