We are a witty people. Here are some fabulous quotes from famous LGBTQ people and our allies, taken from the Qualia Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife. How many can you get right?
The Quotes
1. God is a lesbian.
2. Mercy, ain’t Miss God cutting up something awful? (spoken just before getting struck by lightning)
3. Don’t say I do it
Ain’t nobody caught me
You sure got to prove it on me (lyrics to a song about a Lesbian)
4. When before, wanting to please you
Desiring to have eyes to see you
Now they only serve to mourn you
5. Good morning. I’m a homosexual. We’re here to protest the Epstein article. Would you like some coffee?
6. Some believe a team of cavalry, others infantry
and still others a fleet of ships, to be the most beautiful
thing on dark earth, but I believe it is
whatever a person loves
7. You’ve gotta give them hope.
8. We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair (improvised lyrics to a song)
9. Thank goodness there are no drag queens or diesel dykes among them! Maybe next year. (from an academic presentation)
10. Never in my life have I used the word “fag,” and certainly I’ve not made blanket statements about bodybuilders’ sexual orientation. . . . Anyone familiar with my history knows I’ve always glorified both the musclemen and gays. In fact, I hold goodwill for everybody except liars, cheats, bigots, hypocrites and sloppy reporters.
11. HIGH JACK THIS FAGS (painted on a bomb)
12. They’re such a perfect little butch-femme couple. What they do between episodes, I don’t know.
13. She’s the first woman I’ve worshipped! I’d crawl 40 miles through broken glass just to wank off in her shadow!
14. But what if she’s in the bathtub?! What if, like, her parakeet just died or something? What if she’s expecting a call from someone else she gave her number to? (spoken by Mo)
15. Body, love to please my body
Body, don’t you tease my body (lyrics to a song)
16. I’m a Free Man, a big man
A fat man and a hairy man (lyrics to a song)
17. I’m a real man with a pussy.
18. No one knows their secret identities; rumor has it that if their birth names are ever revealed, the universe will screech to a halt, so no smart person ever asks. (in reference to…)
19. Flaming Rainbow (Lakota name)
20. Islam is on very thin ice with me. I’m hanging on by my fingernails, in anxiety over what’s coming next from the self-appointed ambassadors of Allah.
21. Civilians killed on both sides, and we, in Tel Aviv, fifteen minutes away, choose to ignore it all, to sink and not hear. Especially us, as lesbians and gay men, delude ourselves that our freedom can exist within a violent society of occupation. We cover the asses of human rights in Israel.
22. The fire will not consume us-we take it and make it our own.
23. “The Flower-Seller Will not Sell Flowers from the Rear Courtyard”
24. And Lillian of course, Lillian was my wife.
25. We have to do good drugs, which can produce very intense pleasure.
26. She’ll always be a player
In the ballfields of my heart (lyrics to a song)
27. I think there is no Crime in making what use I please of my own body. (said when placed under arrest)
28. You are my sister
You are my baby (lyrics to a song)
29. As I understand it, after the wimmin’s revolution sex will consist of wimmin holding hands, taking off their shirts, and dancing in a circle. Then we will all fall asleep at exactly the same moment.
30. Keep your hands
Off our panties (chant)
31. Your gloves don’t match your shoes
They’ll see it on the news (chant)
32. Twenty-five, thirty years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States was black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.
33. ’Twas either you or me betrayed the handsome cabin boy. (name the ballad)
34. I should love to perform “There Are Fairies in the Bottom of My Garden” but I don’t dare. It might come out “There Are Fairies in the Garden of My Bottom.”
35. United we stand. Divided, they arrest us one by one.
36. As I passed the border out of Iran, I promised myself and my country that I would one day return to a free, open Iran. Until that time, I would work to achieve that goal.
37. You can’t find enlightenment in the closet.
People Who Said the Quotes (not in order)
Click on the name to see the article on them in the QEGF.
A-mei (Chinese superstar diva)
ACT UP (AIDS activist group)
Robert Aitken (Zen master)
Alison Bechdel (cartoonist)
Bitch and Animal (musicians)
William Brown (1700s, British victim of police brutality)
Buck Angel (porn star)
Pat Califia (transman and scholar)
Meg Christian (musician)
Noel Coward (wit)
Gerald Davis (folklorist)
Michel Foucault (French philosopher), Ethics
Matt Freeman (Bear musician)
Liz Friedman (director of Xena, Warrior Princess)
Gay Activist Alliance in NYC zapping Harper’s Magazine in 1970
Mabel Hampton (NYC activist)
“The Handsome Cabin Boy” Ballad
Juana Inés de la Cruz (17th century Mexican nun)
Kvisa Shchora (Israeli activist group)
Lucy Lawless (Xena, the Warrior Princess)
Lesbian Avengers (Lesbian avengers)
Li Yu (1700s Chinese playwright and author)
Irshad Manji (Muslim activist in Toronto)
Harvey Milk
John Neihardt (poet who co-wrote Black Elk Speaks)
Pussy Palace Panties Picket Protest chant in Toronto
Arsham Parsi (Iranian activist)
Ma Rainey (blues singer)
Bayard Rustin (activist who worked with Martin Luther King)
Bert Savoy (1920s drag queen celebrity)
Sappho (6th century BCE Greek poet)
José Sarria (San Francisco drag empress and activist)
Stonewall Girls (locas who taunted riot police during the Stonewall Riots)
Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist leader)
US Navy
Village People (YMCA supporters)
Mae West (actress and vamp)
The Answers
KEY: 1 Thich Nhat Hanh, 2 Bert Savoy, 3 Ma Rainey, 4 Juana Inés, 5 GAA zap, 6 Sappho, 7 Harvey Milk, 8 Stonewall Girls, 9 Gerald Davis, 10 Mae West, 11 US Navy, 12 Liz Friedman, 13 Lucy Lawless, 14 Alison Bechdel, 15 Village People, 16 Matt Freeman, 17 Buck Angel, 18 Bitch and Animal, 19 John Neihardt, 20 Irshad Manji, 21 Kvisa Shchora, 22 Lesbian Avengers, 23 Li Yu, 24 Mabel Hampton, 25 Michel Foucault, 26 Meg Christian, 27 William Brown, 28 A-mei, 29 Pat Califia, 30 PPPPP, 31 ACT UP, 32 Bayard Rustin, 33 “The Handsome Cabin Boy,” 34 Noel Coward, 35 José Sarria, 36 Arsham Parsi, 37 Robert Aitken