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.

Comedy was the key to everything. I grew up fast and controlled my future by bringing it on faster than it naturally unfolded. I cheated myself out of a childhood but then got a running headstart into adulthood that no one else could keep up with.

Something as important as marriage equality, which is now a constitutional right [in the USA], is something that cannot be denied. It's also very un-Christian, if you think about the way Christ was and Christ's teachings. This is not loving. This is anger. This is hatred. This is bigotry. And it's wrong.

I'm not a body shamer. The word fat has been used to hurt me my entire life.

I'm very much a stand-up comedian in my heart. That's really what I do. Now I'm trying to incorporate all of the different elements of my work as a performer, and use it as a stand-up comedian.

There are definitely racial problems in this country [the USA]. Comedy is a way we can figure out how to solve it, and how to solve it without making people really angry.

I always felt like an outsider growing up. In school, I felt like I never fit in. But it didn't help when my mother, instead of buying me glue for school projects, would tell me to just use rice.