Lgbt Rights Activists

"9 to 5 made people aware of equal pay for equal work. It hasn't really happened, but it has come closer. We're aware of sexual harassment, and of course, there are very few companies that have daycare centers, which seems to me would be the most humane, positive thing to do for a worker. The worker would be more loyal, they'd be more productive. It's so crazy not to do the human thing. It seems to me to be much more profitable to do the human thing. It just makes a better society."

"The point I want to make is, the idea that people will say — out of the 170,000 people or however many were killed in the tsunami — they'll say, "God saved me." As if God particularly saved this person. There's a tremendous amount of narcissism in that belief, that God is speaking directly to you. I mean, it's unbelievable. … All these disparate opinions and points of view that people say they're getting as direct divine guidance — I've been concerned for decades about presidents who claim to be born again. And knowing that everyone I knew in the fundamentalist church or in the evangelical Christian church — they wanted the rapture to come. … We don't have to save the environment, because we're not going to be around."

"We went to a Southern Baptist church. When I was a small child, until I was about 8 or 9 years old, I worried if I didn't go forward and get saved every Sunday — which I couldn't do, it was absolutely too humiliating to see these adults flailing and beating their breasts and sobbing, and I thought, Oh, my God, this is so ridiculous, so embarrassing — I could never bring myself to go forward. And I'd think, Oh, my God, if I don't go next Sunday, if the end of the world comes, I'll go to hell. And that's is a pretty hard thing for a 7- or 8-year-old to carry all the time"

"The larger picture is really to swing people's awareness of what really is moral. ... There are great clergy-people who absolutely do not agree with this. It's not whether God is on our side or whether we're doing God's will, it's being so narcissistic as to think that God is telling you what to do."

"People think there's some real subversive thing playing against whoever it is; a lot of it is just people who want to go along and get along. And they also want to make money. And the bottom line is, they're going to put out as much stuff as they can — stupid, banal stuff that makes money."

"When you talk about yourself for 35 years, first of all, it gets repetitious. And then it seems a little bit excessive, at the least."

"I feel some part of me can wake up and be very existential and the next day wake up and be sort of in love with the universe."

"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"

"Wouldn't it be great if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be? The world would be full of nurses, firemen, and ballerinas."

"If you can't be direct, why be?"

"I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves… I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women, so that we can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness."

"What if it's boring... or if it's not boring, it might be too revealing, or worse, it might be too revealing and still be boring."

"Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers."

"I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk..."

"And that's the truth!"

"I like looser clothes, which always prompts my mom to say something classic like, 'You have such a darling figure - show it off more!'"

"A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Oh God, I'm just like Karen, that's what they [tell me] at the office'. I'm like, 'You know what? The people in your office may not be giving you a compliment. You may be getting fired soon.'"

"People see you one way and think, 'That's not her real thing, she's just putting that on now.' But that is! That's where my creativity really resides. Where it all springs. My characters are really bizarre. They're kind of dark and not really considered great people. It all comes from the same dark place, it's just filtered through comedy."

"If I weren't an actress playing a socialite, I'd have lavender hair, wear crappy vintage clothes and have tattoos. I'd be some kind of crazy lawless rebel - an alternative underground riot girl."

"Two days ago, I dreamt I married a 5-year-old boy. He treated me like a queen and was perfectly lovely. We took a driving trip for our honeymoon. Then it dawned on me: 'Oh my God! He doesn't have a driver's license! We could get arrested!'""

"I'm really good at staying home all day in my pajamas because I had a [dad] who did that."

"You don't need someone else's approval to do what you want; just figure it out and do it, damn it!"

"I've been going to the same grocery store for 13 years, and all of a sudden one day everybody was like, 'Oh, my God...'"

"I am terrified of mayonnaise. It was so bad when I was little that my friends would chase me around the house with a jar of mayonnaise and a knife."

"One tabloid had an article about how I was an irresistible sex- and man-magnet and how men flock to me. Of course, they were absolutely correct..."

"I should have my 'girl citizenship' revoked. I never get facials. I never get my nails done. I'm so busy."

"My best friend was at the grocery store standing behind these two guys in line, and one of the guys told the other that I was a man. He said, 'If you look closely, you can tell that she is,' and the other guy was like, 'Oh, my God! Now that you mention it, she is a man!'. So I'm denying that I'm a man."

"I'm going to climb up this ladder, you understand, to this gate that's like this high and I'm going to pass two dogs and some bags and myself over the thing into a cab driver's arms. THAT's my plan!"

"So I light the fire with the lighter and then I'm like, 'Now, how am I going to light the candles?' And I'm racing through the house, tearing open drawers and throwing things out of closets, looking for matches … and I had just lit the fire with the thing!!! And then I was like, 'How did I light the fire?' So then l took the thing and lit the candles."

"My off-white poodle. She doesn't consider herself to be gay, but I have my hunch."

"One day when I'm walking and I see -- at first I thought maybe he was resting -- but I saw a big dead seal on the beach, which was really sad. However, the thing that I thought was puzzling was there was a couple, a young guy and a girl on a beach towel not 15 feet from this big, dead mammal, and I look up and they're waving at me, like, 'Isn't it a pretty day?' And I'm like, 'There's a big dead seal right there.' They're putting on lotion. It was just bizarre. And, curtain. I just didn't want to be at the beach anymore."

"Well, I was missing my earplugs. And the way that I found out why they're missing is because the little Elmo -- his five pounds -- came in to the bedroom and deposited something on -- he came in from outside, he put something on the rug and was going to eat it. And I walked over and it was an earplug that had already been in and back out -- and apparently so delicious … he wanted it again!"

"I couldn't pronounce my last name until I was, like, 11."

"I said, `Now, wait a minute, so you're telling me you want this fish who lives in a fish tank in a dentist's office to be a fictitious character from an NBC sitcom?' I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, why would you want Mickey Mouse to be the lead in the `House of the Seven Gables' or something."

"I like to take chances, and that's the key to comedy -- dancing like an idiot but doing it with wild abandon."

"Chicago is my favorite American city. … I like all the museums. I love the Art Institute. I love all the theatre and the blues clubs and bars, and the people are so great. I think Chicago is the perfect blend of a big city with a Midwestern finish on it. Everybody is really nice but it is a sophisticated city. I love the park. I love the zoo. I love the lake. The whole thing."

"[Madonna] worked so hard that it was really very touching. She’s a perfectionist and there’s never been anyone on the show that wanted to rehearse more than Madonna did. She wanted to rehearse her scenes over and over again."

"I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is, although I've never had a full-on relationship with a woman, just a couple of what I'd term half-assed dalliances. So I haven't explored it to the degree that I'd like to, but I'll tell you, I'm open to it. And I don't have any problem saying that."

"It is no big deal to me. I have always been attracted to women, and I went on dates with women if they asked me.... It did not seem that different to me. But then I met my [husband], and now he is the apple of my eye."

"It doesn't matter who you love, it's that you love. Who cares if men marry men or women marry women? In San Francisco you don't care, and I applaud that. And I applaud Mayor Newsom for being so brave."

"He's kicking such major ass that it's insane!"

"See, I thought that Jay has had too many high class, very hoity-toity guests on this week. And I wanted to bring everything down a notch or two."

"Athletes, spectators from every corner of the world, this is a message of peace by my beloved countryman Nelson Mandela: "Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference." Today this message seems more relevant than ever, so let these games be more than just sport, let them be a reminder of our common humanity, our respect for one another and a resounding call for peace everywhere."

"I grew up on a farm in South Africa, so I’ve always been surrounded by animals. I was raised by a mother who always had great compassion and respect toward animals. It was instilled in me. I grew up that way. So when I see dogs or other animals suffer, it’s just been something close to my heart."

"I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. … There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want. And that meant "Be responsible with this little motorcycle that we're going to give you, because you're only five. If you're not, you're going to hurt yourself" -- which I did. My mom wasn't like, "Poor baby." She was like, "You do wheelies. That's what's going to happen." My mom's philosophy was, "If you get yourself in trouble, you've got to get yourself out of trouble.""

"Really nice girl. I dated her only once."

"I was with her one Easter in France or Africa and all the animals on the set tried to get into her lap."

"There is no deodorant like success."

"You find out who your real friends are when you're involved in a scandal."

"I've always admitted that I'm ruled by my passions."