Sharon Needles Quotes

So many people in the gay community have always asked me to come out, say it like it is, and help our cause. But for me... I think my biggest statement I could give to the world is to be strong being myself... you have to make something of yourself, and that's what makes us strong.

As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am.

My views on equality are pretty obvious. I mean, I did play a highly complex lesbian techno DJ on TV, but I know it's not always easy to come out and tell the world where you stand.

I didn't want the responsibility, I didn't know how to handle the responsibility of speaking for the gay community. I always felt like I owed them a huge apology for coming out too late.

I'm so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative. So it's amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I've been out of the closet for a while, and so I'm free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.

Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.

As much as I think that in the future we won't need labels, at the moment they're really important. So I'm making myself embrace that. I truly am proud to be queer. Even watching 'Queer Eye' is something that inspired me to say that. So that's the power of representation.

It was a pleasure to be a gay eyesore.

When I came out, when I was 17 years old, it was one of those things where I realized that there was going to be so many obstacles, but being gay doesn't mean being weak.

I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.

It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?

I want to make films that make a difference. I want to be out and hope that that will make things better for gay people and for myself. I hope one day I can start to make the kind of projects or be involved with kind of projects that can really make a difference.

When I came out, I said, 'I'm going to be a proud gay artist.' I'm not going to be Melissa Etheridge. But she's a goddess!

Coming out is the most political thing you can do.

If I don't get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says 'openly gay,' then it's worth the risk because I've had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.

One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible.

I knew that this was what I wanted to talk about on stage. There was no point being coy about it, or pretending that I wasn't gay. That was the substance of my whole act. If you took that away, there would be nothing left.

I think living my happy, open life and showing young gay kids you can be successful, you can have love in your life, you can be a contributing member of society and you can be respected - I think that's it.

My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life, but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.

I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do that. So I had that as kind of a secondary agenda.

No one has the responsibility to be out to anyone but himself or herself. I made my choice a million years ago.

Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out.

I always knew I was gay. I always knew that somehow it would work out.

If you look at my life before I went into television, the struggle I went through coming out would be surprising to most people, given how comfortable and how out I am being the only late-night gay talk-show host.

Being from New York, if you're gay, you're gay. I think it's important that if you are gay, you not be afraid to say who you are.