I love Wilco's "I'm the Man Who Loves You." Nels Cline has that weird guitar slide at the beginning and the song is whispered actually.
I could never make a joke about somebody unless I could say it to their face and they'd laugh.
I'm really bad with trolls because I have a lot of really intense friends who are not necessarily doing things so legally. If I get trolled, [my friends will send me] an email with the person's Social Security number, phone number, pictures of his family, his business, his spouse. I see this person in his totality, and I feel so bad. I shouldn't have that power.
Now on Facebook I have all these 'friends' who used to bully me, and they're like, 'We're so proud! We love you!' They come to shows and want to take a picture, and they're like, 'Don't you remember us?' And I'm like, 'I'm sorry, I don't.' And I feel bad, but I feel good.
Comedy is a noble art.
That notion that we're in the post-racism, post-sexism world is so not true.
I like to respond with jokes and to keep it as light as possible.
The intention is to make people laugh, to make people happy. It's unselfish, it's in the service of others, and as a comedian you are making yourself vulnerable in order to make others happy. And it has a transformative power.
There's lot of social censorship now, especially in this era of ubiquitous social media.
I definitely support free speech.
In some places it's actually very OK to be homophobic.
Your goal is to write that masterpiece. Yello's masterpiece was "Oh Yeah." Whatever I say about the song doesn't matter, because it has a huge impact on how we remember the era.
I get a lot from great '90s artists like Juliana Hatfield, The Pixies, and bands like That Dog and The Breeders.
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 was lucky. I always had really great friends in my personal life, people always just knew who I was. It wasn't until I was in show business where that sort of changed or shifted at first. I have always had a great support network. I have had a lot of really wonderful, close friends.
People like Sean Penn, he is someone that is politically progressive and yet is still at the top of his game in the industry. So I love that he is out there just virtually shaming all the people that voted for Prop 8. He was a really great example of a straight ally, someone who used his talent and used his ability to further our cause, not just for political progressiveness but also specifically for gay marriage and specifically for Harvey Milk's entire life.
I think that reaching out to kids that feel really isolated is a life saving gesture that we have a responsibility as older queers to do.
Christ's purpose was to really show how everyone can be loved and how everyone should be loved and accepted.
I don't understand the whole Christian conservativism doesn't make sense to me because I was raised very Christian and its kind of an odd thing but my parents, my family is also very conservative in their own way but I understand the bible and I studied Christianity very well and I don't see where the hatred of gays comes from because it really defeats Christ's purpose.
If you really care about children then why would you want to keep families from adopting them?
That it is not the people who really feel that way, but it is people who have the most money to fire up these propaganda campaigns, these like, basically these lies that they are willing to lie to the public in order to manipulate them into doing what they want. And to me it doesn't make any sense.
Its funny because when I did feel like I came out and I just felt like I was being truthful to myself, (it was at) that point I became very successful. So you know, it took a true kind of facing that truth of myself and being honest, that was when the real kind of fame or whatever that kind of stuff happened for me.
I really (became) very independent. I was start(ed) to write one-woman shows and mak(e) films and to me I think I really felt like my choice (was) more important than any kind of career goal.
It's okay for you to have relationships, but it's not okay to talk about them. It's not okay to be out or to be public about it. It's not okay to be photographed with your partner.
You have to have a very holler-y sensibility. So they [the audience] know there's something worth listening to.
