Margaret Cho

Moran "Margaret" Cho (born December 5, 1968) is a Korean-American actress and comedian.

Margaret Cho in 2009

Quotes

• Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment. To me, a bitch is assertive, unapologetic, demanding, intimidating, intelligent, fiercely protective, in control — all very positive attributes. But it's not supposed to be a compliment, because there's that stupid double standard: When men are aggressive and dominant, they are admired, but when a woman possesses those same qualities, she is dismissed and called a bitch.

  These days, I strive to be a bitch, because not being one sucks. Not being a bitch means not having your voice heard. Not being a bitch means you agree with all the bullshit. Not being a bitch means you don't appreciate all the other bitches who have come before you. Not being a bitch means since Eve ate that apple, we will forever have to pay for her bitchiness with complacence, obedience, acceptance, closed eyes, and open legs.

  • Lisa Miya-Jervis, Andi Zeisler, ed (2006-08-08). "Foreword". Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. p. xv. ISBN 9780374113438. 

• I wanna fuck her, but I don't want to vote for her.

On Sarah Palin, interview with Perez Hilton

From Her Tours and CDs

Drunk With Power CD

• Something traumatic happened to me when I was younger. I was with this old black woman, and she was very wise, very Alice Walker, The Color Purple...she looked at me and she says, "Baby...you know I used to be able to fly but I can't fly no more, baby. But baby, you...? You too fat to fly."

• I was working on this movie and the makeup artist was just so ugly! I just wanted to say "Physician, heal thyself!" She looked exactly like Aaron Neville, and she was trying her hardest to make me look exactly like Aaron Neville. This one time, she leaned into my face with the mascara wand almost touching my eye and she says, "Whass my name?"

• Then there was this extra on the set who runs up to me and says, "Oh, I know you! I know who you is, I seen you before. You that comedienne, Margaret Cho! I saw you at the Comedy Store. You was wearin' a kimono and you was bowin'." "No, that's the other one." "Oh, right! Now I remember. I just didn't recognize you because you've put on a little weight since your show." And it didn't piss me off that she said that, but it was that she said, "You put on a lot of *gestures* weight!" so I'll know exactly where I put it. And it pissed me off, so I just sort of talked about it to everybody for the whole day. The next day I come into work and the assistant producer comes over to me and says, "Uh, you know that lady from the other day? Well, don't worry. We took care of her." Oh my God! What did you do?! Suddenly I felt like I was running around like this tyrant, all drunk with power- "Nobody can call me fat on this set!"

• So I was drinking tequila, and I was drinking grappa, which is Italian for gasoline, and I was drinking Jägermeister, which I believe is the liquid equivalent of Wonder Woman's golden lasso, because it will make you tell anybody the truth for no reason whatsoever. "You have really bad skin. Thanks for the drink."

• And I got so drunk, I got so drunk that I actually woke up thinking, "Should I get up and pee, or just pee in the bed?" Actually weighing the pros and the cons. "Well, it'll be warm for a minute...it's a big bed, I'll just roll over...I'll just blame it on that guy!"

• This old fellow came up to me and asked, "Excuse me, are you Japanese?" No, I'm Korean. "Oh, really, that's very interesting, because I was looking at you and I knew you were not Filipino. I have many Filipino friends and you do not look like them because you're very HUSKY!!" Is that supposed to be some kind of a compliment? "Oh, no, it's not bad, you're very strong, very HUSKY!"

• [An article about Cho] started out, "Funny, sexy, zaftig Margaret Cho..." What is "zaftig?" Isn't that German for "big fat pig?" I guess I was lucky- "zaftig" is kind of a nice word. It could have been, "Funny, sexy, OBESE Margaret Cho."

I'm The One That I Want Tour

• I love Karl Lagerfeld, and they [PETA] hate him because he showed fur in his collection, and they protested his fashion show. People were chanting outside, "KARL LAGERFELD IS A MURDERER! KARL LAGERFELD IS A MURDERER!" And I thought, "Wouldn't it be fabulous if Karl Lagerfeld actually was a murderer?" Like, what if he just fuckin' lost it one day...backstage at a show in Milan...and bludgeoned Elsa Klensch to death with a platform shoe. "I HATE THAT BLOUSE!"

• The best part of any fashion show is Karl Lagerfeld with his white hair, and the big glasses, and a fuckin' fan. Like he's some kind of Spanish lady or something. And I look at the fan and I'm like, "Bitch, it's not that hot, what'choo doin'?"

• I love the word "faggot," because it describes my kind of guy! You see, I am a fag hag. Fag hags are the backbone of the gay community. Without us, you're nothing! We have been there all through history guiding your sorry ass through the underground railroad! We went to the prom with you!

• I love my gay male friends, but when I was a little girl, I always used to wish that I would be constantly surrounded by gorgeous guys, and I am, and I should have been more specific.

• Thank God for gay men. Thank God for gay men, because if it were not for gay men, I would not talk to men at all.

• If I'm talking to a guy who's straight and cute and single, I'm like, "Are you a unicorn?"

• One of my friends has these ideas about how we should meet men. "What we should do on Friday night is we will fucking go get fucked up and fuck yeah! We will fucking get fucked up and then we will fucking get tickets to go see the Chippendale's Dancers, fuck yeah! We will fucking get tickets to see the Chippendale's Dancers." I can get gay guys to dance in my house for free.

• The Chippendale's dancers are gay. They're gay. Because there is no such thing as a straight man with visible abdominal muscles. You have to suck cock to get that kind of muscle definition. It doesn't work for women. You know, I tried, OK?

• [Jo from The Facts of Life] was such a lesbian. Wasn't she the biggest lesbian? I used to watch that show, like, "Oh, she gonna fuck Blair!"

• One of my first jobs was on a lesbian cruise. I was the ship comedian for the Lesbian Love Boat.

• Lesbians love whale watching! They fuckin love it! THEY LOVE IT MORE THAN PUSSY! It's any sea mammal really. Whales, manatees, dolphins. They go crazy for the dolphins. I don't know what it is- I think it's the blowhole.

• So I was on the ship, with 800 lesbians. We can't get off. So much drama. "Were you looking at her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her? WELL, WERE YOU?!" We all got on the same cycle.

• There was this really prim and proper British woman who used to run horse races for the lesbians on the ship, and the lesbians would get to name the horses, and the really prim and proper British woman would have to read out the names. "Horse number one, Galloping...Clitoris. Horse number one, Galloping Clitoris. Very well, carry on. Horse number two...No Dick for Me. Horse number two, No Dick for Me. Rather a rude name, don't you think? No Dick for Me? Should be, No Dick for Me, Thank You."

• I slept with a woman on the ship, and afterwards I was thinking, "Am I gaaaay? Am I straaaaight?" And then I realized: I'm just slutty. Where's my parade?

• My mom used to give me messages like this: "Ummmmmmm...Scott called...IS HE THE GAY??!!" "Well, God, mom, I don't know if he's the gay...that's a lot of pressure on just one guy. He has to do the parade all by himself! 'I'm here! I'm queer!...I guess I'm the only one.'"

• A Korean reporter once asked me, "Do you think your Korean parents are ashamed because you talk about what you talk about on stage?" I said, "I don't think they're ashamed because they're Korean. I think any parents would be ashamed."

• The National Enquirer published this thing called the "Chow like Cho Diet," which was this fake diet that I never went on, with all these fake quotes from me, like "When I was a little girl, I was raised on rice and fish. So when I get heavy, I go back to that natural Asian way of eating." That is so Mulan. You can almost hear the mandolin in the background. "When I was a little girl, I grow up on the rice paddy... and although we have no food, I have a tendency to put on weight."

• I was skiing in Deer Valley and there's no people of color up there, and I'm up there, skiing, trying to fit in like an asshole, and I have an instructor and he goes, "Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but you have a tendency to bow into your skis." Fuck you! And then I fell.

• It was hard for me to do the show (All-American Girl) because a lot of people didn't even understand the concept of Asian-American. I was on a morning show and the host said, "Awright, Margaret, we're changing over to an ABC affiliate! So why don't you tell our viewers in your native language that we're making that transition?" So I looked at the camera and said, "Um, they're changing over to an ABC affiliate."

• [quoting her producer] "The network is concerned. They're concerned about the fullness of your face. They think you're really overweight and you're going to have to do something about it." I didn't know what to say to that. I always thought I was decent looking; I had no idea that I was a giant face taking over America! HERE COMES THE FACE!!

• We were taping the episodes of the show. I guess they had decided they could now fit my face onto a TV screen, and they wouldn't have to letterbox it.

• I was on the floor in the emergency room, and the woman came up to me and said "Hi, my name is Gwen and I'm here to wash your vagina!"

• The first thing that you lose on a diet is brain mass.

• I knew I was crazy because I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar and the part where Jesus carries the cross up the mountain, I actually said to myself, "Wow! That must be a really good workout! Yeah, because you're doing arms and cardio!"

• Because I wasn't Asian enough- they decided to hire an Asian Consultant. Because I was fucking it up as an Asian. She would follow me around: "Margaret! Use chopsticks! And when you're done eating, you can put them in your hair. Now you're wearing shoes, which is something we don't do in the house. Now I'm just going to leave this abacus right here..."

• I stood in front of a hundred and one critics at a critic's convention and a critic asked me, "Miss Cho, isn't it true that your management asked you to lose weight to play the part of yourself in your own TV show?" Gail [the producer] grabbed the mike from me and said, "There is no truth in that whatsoever." I...was so...hungry.

• So they cancelled our show, and gave the time slot to Drew Carey, because he's so skinny.

• I gave a LOT of unnecessary head. And I know that guys are going to argue with me about this. "Oh, Margaret, there's no such thing as unnecessary head! All head is necessary! All head is wanted and needed in the world. I run a home for unnecessary head."

• I am not gonna die because some network executive thought I was fat! It's so wrong! It's so wrong that women are asked to live up to this skinny ideal that is totally unattainable. For me to be ten pounds thinner is a full-time job, and I am handing in my notice and walking out the door!!

• I am not gonna die because I failed as someone else. I am gonna succeed as myself. And I'm gonna stay here and rock the mike until the next Korean-American, fag hag, shit starter, girl comic, trash talker comes up and takes my place!

The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

• No matter what these terrorists do, I refuse to be terrorized. All this requires is just a few alterations in our day to day lives. For example, my first instinct when I receive an envelope full of white powder...is to snort it! I just won't do that this time!

• There's a bar in Edinburgh called "CC Bloom's." CC Bloom is the name of the character that Bette Midler played in Beaches. That is the gayest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. That place should just be called "Fuck-Me-In-The-Ass Bar and Grill."

• If you've ever bought drugs before, you understand that for some bizarre reason you have to feign this relationship with your dealer. It's like you're not really going to him to buy drugs. You're going for a social visit. Drugs are the surprise that just happens when you get there. "Oh, hash? I didn't know!" And he's talkin' to you and you're tryin' to be interested, you know, "Oh yeah? No, really...I love Foghat. No, seriously." And inside you're like, "Just fuckin' give it! I hate you. Your house smells like cat pee!" Why do all drug dealers' houses smell like cat pee?

• I had a colonic irrigation in this clinic in Santa Monica, because people in Los Angeles cannot do anything for themselves, much less take a shit.

• I didn't know if I was going to mention my period on stage, but then I figured, if Richard Pryor had a period, he would talk about it.

• "I do not need nobody tellin' me who I am! I know who I am!...I be walkin' down the hallway, they call me names. They call me faggot, they call me sissy, I say, 'Oh yeah? Well, you forgot, I'm also a model and a actress, so fuck you too!'"

Quoting her friends from high school, Alan and Jeremy

• What I love most about gay men is the way that they are about sex. There is a kind of fun and frivolity that surrounds gay men and their sexuality that is not there for straight men and sex. I think if you're oppressed over who you want to sleep with, when you actually go and do it, you're gonna have a really good time. If you are hated for who you like to fuck, you're gonna kick up your heels and fuck...and it is such an inspiration to watch.

• It's just that it's been my experience in having sex with some straight men that the sex is over when he gets off. And I don't accept that. I want to have an orgasm. Not right now! This is the Isaac Stern Auditorium! No, I want to have one. I'll put a chalk board over the bed. One...one.

• There's no real way for women to really learn about sex in our culture. There are articles about sex in women's magazines, but that's not the kind of information I'm after. There was this article in Cosmopolitan about "How to look good in bed with your lover." It was these tips like, "If you put your arm under your breasts they're higher," or "If you're laying on your back, your stomach is flat," or "If you're having anal sex, he can't see your cellulite!" That's wrong, because I get so ugly when I fuck and I don't care! And if you care what I look like when you're fucking me, you shouldn't be fucking me in the first place!!

• I can't even look at those "women's magazines" anyway. I love fashion, but I look at the pictures of the skinny models, and they're wearing clothes I can't even fit on my fingers. And I look at that and I think, if that is what a woman is supposed to look like, then I must not be one.

• So from the age of 10, I became anorexic, and then bulimic, and then stayed that way for about 20 years, until one day I just said, "Hey, what if this is it? What if this is just what I look like and nothing I do changes that? So how much time would I save if I stopped taking that extra second every time I look in the mirror to call myself a big fat fuck? How much time would I save if I just let myself walk by a plate-glass window without sucking in my gut and throwing back my shoulders? How much time would I save?" And it turns out I save about 97 minutes a week. I can take a pottery class.

• “And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem as I am considered a minority and if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you're worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, ‘Ugh, I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so old.’ Don't you know that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around crème that doesn't turn around shit. If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

• I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather; then by all means, use restraints.

Revolution Tour

• This is a very strange time we're living in, and I would feel a little bit better if George W. Bush could say the word "nuclear" correctly. You would have thought somebody would have said something by now. At the very least, Condi would have got up in his face, "Foo', it's NU-CLE-AR! Imma have'ta write it down fo'ya!...I'm makin' flash cards for the President. This is...[shaking her head] mm-mmmm."

• Monogamy is so weird. Like when you know their name and stuff.

• I helped deliver one of my best friend's children. I just was so amazed by my friend, because she was not just a woman, she was not just a mother. At that moment she was creation; she was life; she was God. And as I looked in her eyes, BOOM! Her pussy exploded.

• I am secretly a costume drama queen. Oo, I love me some Merchant Ivory films! I do! If there is a petticoat and Helena Bonham Carter, already I can feel the tears well up in my eyes. I love me some period films! And I know that I will never be in them. I will never be in any of these movies, unless I am laying down on my side smoking some opium. And I get offered movie roles all the time, but I say, "No! No! I don't want to play a manicurist. I don't want to play a really pissed-off liquor store owner. I don't want to go nowhere with a chicken under my arm. I don't want to play an exceptionally good student, I do not want to get off a tour bus and take numerous photographs, I do not ever want to utter the phrase, 'Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond'! I don't want to write down all my memoirs about being a geisha!" What it is, is that I cannot run up a wall!!

• The only thing that was sort of Asian [as a role model] was Hello Kitty. I don't want to model myself after Hello Kitty. She has no mouth.

• I get nervous when people say to me, "I just can't tell any of you Asians apart!" Um, why do you have to tell us apart? Are we gonna be separated for some reason? I can't tell us apart! I was not born with a chip in my neck that would automatically identify every Asiatic person that I would come across. "beebeebeebeebeep Filipino."

• I was on a plane, and the steward was coming down the aisle. "Asian chicken salad...Asian chicken salad...Asian chicken salad..." And he gets to me and he's like, "...chicken salad!" What does he think I'm gonna do? "Dis is not de salad of my people! In my homeland, dey use mandarin orange slices...and crispy wonton crunches!"

• Women and eating disorders have such a long history, but now I see it happening to gay men. And when it comes to anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphia, gay men are far worse than women. They take it way more seriously. "Why diet when you can take crystal meth?"

• I think everyone should go on my diet. It's called the Fuck It Diet. Basically what it is, is if I want to eat something but it has a lot of fat or carbs, I just take a moment, and I go within, and I say "Fuck it" and I eat it. You have to do it 6 times a day. It works really well with the Fuck That Shit Exercise Program.

• I'm very inappropriate, which makes me a problem dinner guest, because at some point during the evening someone inevitably says, "OK, heh heh heh, OK, too much information! Heh heh heh. Don't go there!" I live there. I bought a house there.

• [on reacting to racism] I don't wanna be the better person. I don't wanna rise above it. I do wanna sink down to their level. I am not gonna turn the other cheek. "I'mma gonna show you what cheek I'mma turn, OK!"

• I got back from Toronto, where they had a severe outbreak of SARS- you know, Severe Asian Racism Syndrome.

• I was in the airport and there were these big snowboarder guys and they had white masks around their necks, and as soon as they saw me, they put their masks on. So I just went, "*cough, cough, cough* You wanna egg rorr?"

• I would rather have a gay child. If you have a gay son, you know he's not gonna be shooting up his high school. That would get in the way of yearbook.

• [on having a gay child] And the Three Wise Drag Queens would come, bearing gifts of 1000-thread-count sheets, hair products by Frédéric Fekkai, and a copy of the Immaculate Collection.

• I would be happy to have a gay child. He would be a Boy Scout, and he would teach all the other Boy Scouts how to build a fire with two sticks and a back-handed compliment.

• [My gay child] would be a soldier, and he would change the slogan from "Don't ask, don't tell" to "Don't fuck with me, queen!!"

• Silence equals nonexistence. If I don't give too much information, if I don't go there, it's like I was never there in the first place. I noticed this most right after September 11, when there were no gays or lesbians invited to give their opinion about what was going on. There were no women invited to give their opinion. There were hardly any people of color invited, and if they were, they were Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans talking about the violence that they'd experienced because they shared the same skin color as the terrorists, which is heinous and dumb! That's like arresting Emmanuel Lewis because Gary Coleman punched that woman!

• I am hurt because somebody just got called a fag, or a dyke, or a pansy, or a sissy, or a bulldyke, or a chink, or a nigger, or a kike, or a wetback, or an injun, or a jap, or a bitch, or a whore, or a cunt, and unless to you that's a term of endearment...in the right context, it is...that person is being attacked because of who they are, and I don't accept that.

• If racial minorities, sexual minorities, feminists both male and female, hell, all liberals got together and had this big "too much information," "go there," voice...that would equal power. And that power would equal change. And that change would equal a revolution.

• I think that gay people should have the right to get married by Elvis like everybody else.

Assassin CD

• Why do Republicans hate gay marriage so much? They certainly don't hate gay prostitutes.

• If you're against same sex marriage but you laugh your ass off to Will & Grace, FUCK YOU [holds up middle finger]. You are a hypocrite [pointing], and you're not allowed to pick and choose what you like from our culture, and leave behind the burden of inequality.

• I have had enough of the Pope, the Pope who really held on, he really held on, he wasn't going anywhere, he was just fucking hanging on, and the press could not wait for him to die. They were just waiting outside that whole Saturday when he died, but he wouldn't die, all day they were just fucking waiting, like: "He's not dead yet! But he might be when we come back from this commercial!"

• The Pope was so sick he couldn't even come to the window, he was so sick all he could manage is a "BLAAARGH (vomiting)". But even that "blargh" was anti-gay.

• The Pope talks so much shit. The Pope was castigating the media for making gays look normal. YEAH, you're a real GOOD judge of normal, with your gold dress and your matching gold hat, living it up in the Vatican with 500 men surrounded by the finest antiques in the world! Queen, please! You live like Versace did!

• The way some of these politicians talk about homosexuality is very insulting. They treat it like it's a disease, like being gay is contagious. Being gay is not contagious. And if you think that it is, YOU'RE GAY.

• Talking to John Kerry is like talking to an Ent. You know, the tree people from Lord of the Rings...[imitating an Ent] I believe that all Americans should have affordable healthcare...

• [About Christian Groups] They have no rights to call themselves "Christians", because they have no Christianity to them; they have no kindness, no compassion, no charity. I want Jesus to come back and say: "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

• They need to read the Scriptures; where it says in Matthew, chapter 4, verse 17, it says: "Shut the fuck up." That's the King James version, by the way.

• George Bush blocked the availability of morning-after pills over the counter, stating that it would "promote promiscuity". ...So? You know, I never had access to morning-after pills, but that did not stop me from fucking my way through the U.S.A. like I was Lewis and Clark. And if the issue is promiscuity, then why is Viagra everywhere? Doesn't it make more sense to leave the bullets out of the gun than to just avoid being shot?

• I want morning-after pills more than over the counter; I want morning-after pills with my check at dinner. I want morning-after pills on my hotel pillow when I go to bed at night.

• [on Arnold Schwarzenegger] That motherfucker be ORANGE. ...I am not against people of color, but that is a fucked-up color. I think that him and Donatella Versace, they gonna start a whole new race of Oompa-Loompa.

• And especially, especially, don't fuck with vegans. Do not look vegans in the eye. If you get into an argument with a vegan, say "I'm wrong" and run away as fast as you can. Do not fuck with vegans because they will fuck you up...BECAUSE THEY'RE HUNGRY.

• "Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! … I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok airport and she was pushing her luggage cart and this woman came up and just touched her and Björk went (roaring and hissing). And it was so scary, because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. … And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.'

• But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars, ever. She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg -- what else you gon' wear with your bird?! And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best.

• I vowed to myself if I ever go to one of these award shows I'm gonna wear some kind of a bird. So I went to the Grammys last years I had a dress made out of peacock feathers. And I didn't win a Grammy, was named worst dressed. And that's impressive, because if you win a Grammy you had to just beat out what, three, four people? But if you're worst dressed you beat fifteen thousand people! I beat Mary J. Blige! I beat Lil' Kim!

• I became involved with this organization called MoveOn.org, and I got into it right in the middle of some serious stuff. So when I made some anti-Bush comments, I got this flood of emails from right-wing supporters. I really wish I could say that they were productive emails, but basically it was, "Fuck you, you dirty Chink cunt bitch fag-hag. Go back to your country. Four more years! Dirty Chink dyke slut! Jesus saves!" So I posted them on my website, including the return addresses, and some of these people wrote me from their work emails. So I had their work information, their names, their addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, Blockbuster card numbers, favorite flavor of ice-cream. And the thing is, I guess I have this whole fanbase that's ready to go to bat for me. They're already pissed off, so they just need half a reason. And basically I discovered Al Gay-da. They're a sleeper cell you do not want to wake up. So suddenly these people are emailing me back: "Please take my info off of your site. I'm so sorry. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I shouldn't have said what I said. And please make these gay people go away. Please, hurry! I think Cirque de Soleil is warming up on my front lawn!"

• Why do they think "fat dyke" is an insult? To me that means, "I'm-a eat fried chicken and pussy."

Beautiful Tour

• Do I look like a happy-ending to you?

• I think it's very important to feel beautiful. I think it's very political to feel beautiful, especially if you're Queer, because if you're Queer you have to take on the world every single day of your life, so you have to feel beautiful to survive.

• I hate Sarah Palin, I would never vote for her, I hate her politics, but I kinda wanna fuck her. I know, it's unholy, it's so wrong. I want to eat her pussy from behind. Eskimo-style. No, you know I wouldn't eat that thing. 'Cause you know it's frozen. My tongue would stick...

• And I have to explain what a G-spot is for all the gay men. A G-spot is basically this button in your vagina, that if you push it, it turns it on. You push it and makes a sound like... (imitates Mac start-up sound). That's if you have a Mac vagina... I don't know what noise it makes if you have a PC. ... I have a Mac sexuality. Don't touch my anus, because that is like my Force Quit. ... You will lose any unsaved changes.

From Her Books

I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight

INVISIBILITY

• Like when Jay Leno made jokes about Koreans eating dog, but the hidden messages, our invisibility, is more harmful to us than any of those fools on "board".
• When we never see who we are, never hear what we think about things, what we are doing as a group or what we are doing individually, then it is as if we are never there in the first place. Silence = Nonexistence.
• All I ask for is a chance to have the same kind of forum, the right to speak, the same credibility as thee wrong-ass ignant fools. But the producers of these types of shows think tht I will only talk about tai chi, where to get the best sushi on the West Side, how to feng-shui your office...the fact that the media at large look at my race before they hear my voice = fucked up shit.
• The terrible thing about invisibility is the lengths we will go to be seen.
• This land is your land, but this land isn't my land - that is what so many of us thought. This 2nd class citizenship has sunk in so deeply that we have barely an awareness of it.
• Haven't we heard enough from these ancient white guys? There is this silent agreement that everyone everywhere has made regarding old white men. They are the bottom line, the last word, no matter what. The saying "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings is erroneous, because women who are fat are never listened to".
• My parents have lived in the United States since 1964 and they have never voted. They don't feel they have a right to. They don't feel this is their country. Even though they are citizens, they pay taxes, they watch the news and keep up with current events, they still don't feel comfortable enough with their American life to fully participate in it...Any attempt to argue is thwarted by dismissal...I guess he doesn't want to explain, because how can you explain something as intangible as invisibility?
• I want to scream and shout, "Stop! We are all human beings!"...but I don't think anybody will hear it.
• I don't know how to find our voice. It catches in my throat when I try to use it. If I do manage to get something out, its met with very vocal opposition from all kinds of surprising sources.
• Racism is one of the biggest taboos in our culture, yet most discrimination against Asian-Americans goes largely unnoticed...its blown off by the rest of the media as a joke, as in "Look at them. They get all up in arms over nothing".
• The dismissal of our anger as a racial minority is worse than any slur or epithet because it undermines our ability to react to it.
• I add to the culture of invisibility becoming complicit with it.

MENTAL COLONIZATION

• I see evidence of my own racist brainwashing when exploring the landscape of current foreign policy. (about North Korea)
• My association is so painfully close that avoidance is the only way I know to retain my identity. It's ridiculous and embarrassing. I hate feeling this way, because it forces me to see how deeply racism has affected me.
• Prejudice and bigotry rot me from within, and the strains of these viruses are hearty and hard to kill.
• I had always regarded the world of political humor as the exclusive domain of white men and immediately disqualified myself from participation. I know better now, its immensely pleasing when I'm referred to as a political comedian...
• Self-hatred is a devastatingly difficult habit to break, especially when we are mostly unaware of it.

RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

• The amount of racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred in general that lies beneath the surface of the American dream is astounding and serious.
• People are surprised at the depth of resentment against Asian Americans, but it never shocks me. We are the object of hatred not only for the things we do but just being who we are, ching chong chinamen.
• There are still lynchings. And while we don't use ropes anymore, there are more efficient ways of doing it.
• The majority should not be allowed to rule simply because its the majority. The majority is responsible for slavery, segregation, lynching, denying women and minorities the vote, Japanese internment and a million other injustices and inhumanities.
• Then there are the laws against homosexuality. Then there is the Asian exclusion act. Then there the internment of Japanese Americans. I'm not even going to talk about Guantanamo. And then there is the first American hate crime: taking this land from the Native Americans. We can keep it up forever. Hate Crime Trivial Pursuit. There are more than enough hate crimes to play a decent round.
• No matter who you are or what you feel about homosexuality--if you are gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, bicurious, metrosexual, heterosexual, celibate, hermaphrodite, a satyr, a succubus, a fucking human being-- and especially if you are a fucking human being and really want to live in a country where all people are equal--not separate, not "civil-unionized", not lied to about your rights--realize that same sex marriage will not harm you. It will not make gay people more gay, it will not make you gay unless you already are. It will not make your children gay unless they already are. It will not change your life in the least, unless you are gay and wanna marry your partner.
• What is deeply distressing is the incredible number of people who are vehemently opposed to equality, and the need for them to deny gay rights simply because they cannot bear the thought of gays having rights.
• Because even though there is all this talk about multiculturalism in television and the movie industries, I have yet to see any evidence of it.
• I actually adore that kind of hate mail, because if all you have to fight me with is prejudice then I have already won the battle, and eventually I'm gonna win this war. I wrote about hate mail on my website, and posted all that I had received, along with the names and e-mail addresses of the guilty...(this) actually prompted an incredible number of the haters to recant and apologize.
• Whenever you hear the words chink, nigger, beaner, paki, sissy, bull dyke, faggot, cunt, bitch, ho, jap...because through no fault of your own, you happen to be you, and apparently to the person saying it something is wrong with that.
• We have allowed alarmist and racist attitudes to take us hostage, and if these impulses are not kept in check they will behead us all.
• Having to remind others of your American status, fear of being connected to the enemy because of ancestral ties, the threat so prevalent that it makes you put not one but two giant flags outside is not right.
• We are the scavenger minority, picking at the carcass of civil rights, trying to get our measly share, so very far from the idea of fair...but what do you expect? We are the bottom-feeders of a multicultural fishtank, we get pushed to the back of the bus by more vocal minorities that have been there and don't want to return.
• Whenever I get hate mail, the verbal assault is always racial.
• We don't have the luxury of our own privatized civil rights movements because the crimes - the ignorance, the rage, the hate against the who/what/why of some of us, is a much much larger foe. Together we are more than the sum of our parts. In union, in communion, in joining hands, we conquer all, because we have love on our side.
• Racism is a cancer that is unstoppable if left unchecked.
• Our nation bringing slaves from Africa was the biggest hate crime of all. Then, when the slaves were freed, there wasn't anywhere for them to go. Then came the reign of terror by the KKK that never really ended. Then there is the fact that none of this stuff is taught in American History, at least not in detail.

PIGEONHOLING PEOPLE

• I have never had any desire to play a maid, a liquor store owner kicking a black person out of my store, a rude and harried waitress, a worldly-wise acupuncturist, an early-rising, loose black cotton pants wearing elderly woman practicing tai chi in the park, a manicurist, a prostitute, a student in an English as a Second Language course, a purveyor of exotic mushrooms and ginseng, an exchange student, a newscaster covering gang warfare in Chinatown, a woman drowning my newborn baby in a bowl, a daughter crying with my mom over our constant battle between East and West yet finally coming together over a particularly intense game of mahjong...a young girl being raped and killed by GIs in the Killing Fields, a woman balancing a basket of any kind on my head...committing suicide because my white lover did not come back to Japan after the war, or having him come back for me and fooling him successfully for years and years thinking I am a woman when really I'm a dude, as if my race castrates me so much this deception is completely feasible...
• I stamp my feet and claim ignorance like a child, because its the color of my skin that says I'm supposed to know. I become the "one who refuses to see the self".

ACTIVISM

• What is needed now is action, not hopelessness
• We are a nation divided which is obvious. The problem is, the division is keeping this monarchy in place.
• We are supposed to be ruled by ourselves, but I have yet to see any evidence of it in our lifetime.
• Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. It is vital to mourn the victims of this government, but not at the expense of losing our sense of humor. Our ability to laugh directly coincides with our ability to fight. If we make fun of it, we can transcend it.
• Although it might be that we can't expect change overnight, there was really a rapid shift in the way we view politics.
• These new ways of looking at ourselves politically redefine what it means to be American. It took our until now, very passive identity and turned us all into revolutionaries.
• We are more aware and politicized than ever before. There is very little ambiguity as to which side you are on.
• Yet the powers that be haven't quite considered the strength of our sheer numbers.
• Ultimately a government cannot defeat its people, no matter how much power they assume or how corrupt they are. For us, there is only opportunity.
• The people I choose to admire are not necessarily popular, not necessarily terribly well known, but they each have something to offer me, a lesson, a cautionary tale, an idea, an inspiration.
• Might does not equal right...fortunately, the majority holds power by a very small margin. There are certain things the majority has no right to mess with, certain things that are definitely worth fighting for--worth defending and worth offending.
• We have a date to rumble with stupidity, ignorance, prejudice, laziness, hatred, and greed.
• I am fighting when I'm sleeping. In my dreams, I must slay the dragon of European heterosexual male society, then I wake up in the morning and be an activist.
• I have to watch the news and movies about the people who I am not, then translate my struggle in order to make it palatable for those people who don't have to march but are sympathetic to my voice.
• I try every day to challenge myself further, and I believe in doing this I slay the monster (within) bit by bit. That's why being political is an essential part of my life. In the end, its all I have.
• We are no longer afraid to voice our opinions, to use our power, to pool our resources, to allow our differences to unite us instead of keeping us apart.

NATIONALISM

• Just as we pull up to this place...I notice two very large American flags...It's as if there was a need to emphasize the Americanness of this place. "We are American" says the first flag. "No we really are!" says the second. It struck me as enormously sad, somehow awkward and tragic.
• I love America. I'm not moving. It's cool. I just don't like seeing dead people.
• We have no idea what our nation is doing in our name. I don't want to be anyone's captor, anyone's torturer.
• I feel 100% responsible, even though there's nothing I could do to prevent it. What good is my guilt if it's not felt by those supposedly in charge?
• Its unacceptable to me, both as an American and as a human being.
• We justify those atrocities because, well, they're doing their best for their country, but then again, that exactly what the hooded executioners...

WAR

• My attitude towards peace does not depend on which war we are discussing. I think that words should do the work of bombs
• Stop the fantasy we need to be defending freedom, because we don't have freedom in our own country yet.
• They (the government) are unfazed by any amount of travesty, loss, tragedy, death, and destruction.
• Why is this all so hard? Why do these old men need it so hard?
• It was not our right to have become the world's bully and start this war in the first place.
• Of course, we're there because of weapons of mass destruction that do not exist.
• Don't you think the soldiers look like they came straight from high school yearbooks, too young to be over in Iraq, fighting for no reason?
• Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he applied himself.
• Of course America is responsible for the total body count. We started it, we own it, we sow, we reap, but we are also disconnected from the responsibility of our won dirty acts of war.
• The military posts vengeance on their websites, and seeks publicity for their displays of inhumanity.
• How many Americans lives have been lost in this brutal and needless war? How many Iraqi? How many names do we know on either side?

DEATH

• I am super glad about your four-hour erection, but I was wondering, where is the cure for AIDS? (regarding Viagra, Cialis, etc)
• You will never make love, laugh, fight, eat, go to the movies, kiss, smile, dance, sing, run, skate, play the piano, buy candy for, argue jokingly, tell stories, look longingly at, jump on the bed with, pet the dogs with your faces, sing along with the song in the car and get the words wrong, share a secret, gossip, cop a feel, go hear a band that you both love, share a really good meal, carpool with people you don't like and make fun of them secretly later, cry, comfort, scratch backs, insist on pizza, catch them staring at you, put your arms around them, stay up too late, lean against warm bodies, feel safe with their feet sliding next to yours in bed, raise your children, go to boring dinner parties and get too drunk to drive home so you sleep in the car, spend alternate holidays with each others families, have uncontrollable lust with, followed by mind blowing fuck sessions lasting for hours and hours at a time, take a bath so hot one of you has to get out, all naked and wet and red and dizzy but not embarrassed because this is who you love and rarely are you shy with them, watch a TV show you both hate because the remote control is broken--merely happily, and maybe sometimes unhappily, share your life, and be with them, but you can't, because they're dead. Suddenly, unjustly,untimely, irretrievably--unconscionably dead.
• As you read their names, imagine who they loved, who loved them, and those those left behind cope now without them. They're never coming home. Never.

SPEAKING UP

• Why am I political? Because society's consistent and constant disregard and lack of respect for minorities, even the title minority, is too much to bear silently. Their insistence at our invisibility, whether subtle as noninclusion, or as loud and violent as hate crimes, is contagious, and can make me hide from myself.
• If we don't talk about this epidemic we are going to die.
• Playing it safe is not productive for anyone, because safety requires gays and lesbians to be invisible, and the inhumanity engendered by making people invisible is anything but safe, rather, it puts us all in danger. When we are banned from the places we should be welcomed, where we should not only be allowed but encouraged to speak, where should we go then?
• Trying to fault gays and lesbians for standing up for their rights is backwards and unconscionable. We have no idea how powerful we actually are. We were never considered part of the general, respectable population.
• I am not so much angry as trying to find my own voice in the world, to find enough courage to speak up in the first place, then to go forth and use it, which both are monumental tasks and require more confidence than you'd think.
• The only way to push forward instead of wasting away in the purgatorial procrastination of worry is to just not care what the outcomes. I need to just start running downhill with my eyes shut. There are no guarantees that I will be able to survive this world, where the air is rare for minorities like myself. But that suits me just fine. I'm a risk taker that way.

FEMINISM

• If you are not a feminist, you do not deserve to live. Do you think you grew out of the ground?
• What people need to understand is pussy is the Front Door to Life. Do you get that? Nobody ever thinks about it like that in the dusty ancient cabinet of old white men that think they know everything.
• Feminism is nonnegotiable.
• With salons all over the West serving up specialties like "Barely Legal", removing all hair from the area to replicate the genitalia of an underage girl, as statutory rape seems all the rage.
• All of them who need to tell ladies to stop talking about sports and stay on the sidelines, because we are baby-making machines.

HATING ONESELF

• Body dysmorphia has got to go.Its similar to a disease called "crazy eyes" not the way others look at you, but the way you see yourself. The insanity which we use as our vision....
• There was never a lack of reasons to hate myself, to hate my body.
• Since the unfortunate victims pay for the pleasure themselves these are HIGH CRIMES that will go UNPUNISHED because they are self-inflicted.
• The quiet messages that affect and alter the way we view ourselves are controlled by an elite group of ignant men.
• I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful...but the mirrors became too much...what a disappointing reality check!
• I could care less where my breasts are as long as they are on my body, ... and I'm sorry I just don't care that much about gravity....My lawless, braless ways are rather outlaw.

FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS

• When your young and hungry and nobody's ever really accepted you because of your color and class, the hurt of your own family having cast you out in the first place still inside you somewhere, you dance hard because there is no other way to live, and when opportunity knocks its more of an abduction than a housecall.
• Swept up in a grand illusion that I might be able to eat, have a roof over my head, own some pretty dresses and realize, in a vastly heady way, that I could make a living doing my art, which was the only dream I ever had, what could I say but "Yes, where do I sign?"

From Her Weblog

• San Francisco fucking rules. I am so proud of my home town for legalizing gay marriage, sending gays and lesbians down to the city by the Bay that was built on rock and roll to tie the knot.

• Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion. A matter of taste, a whim, an eye, a beholder, an opinion, a spin, light crossing the frame, paint, projection. The moment. Context.

• We have been threatened by a local conservative group who said they will picket the show unless I am fired and taken off the bill and replaced by someone else. Sorry. I am now more excited than ever to meet y'all. Personally, if you are going to picket a show, fine, but the fact that you are picketing my show, means you are stepping up to me, which means some very bad things could possibly happen to you.

• Then there is Dick Cheney, who essentially said that if Kerry is voted in as president, terrorism will hit America again. How is that? Is Cheney going to make some calls? Apparently he has the hook up.

• This presidential race is the biggest dick contest in history. "Your dick is indecisive!" "Your dick started an unnecessary war!" "Your dick didn't get injured enough in Vietnam!" "Your dick didn't even go to Vietnam!" "Your dick is soft on terrorism!" "Your dick started terrorism!" "Your dick blamed Vietnam vets for atrocities that made all vets unable to come home to a hero's welcome." "Your dick forged its way out of military service!" Has this kind of dick-waggling happened before outside of a pro-wrestling context?

• So when some man says to me, "Don't you wish you were beautiful?" those are like killing words. That's my death, if I don't pummel it into his soft, not-yet-completely-formed radio disc-jockey skull that I am already beautiful, and I wish for nothing, other than for him to go away. I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. You can't even get to me. I got special service, boundaries like the rings of Saturn. I am protected. I am four–five faggots deep all around me, who don't see your name on the list, who will not let you in here looking like that, who will hold you in a cold, hard, unflinching stare or back hand compliment you until you cry. If you even had the courage to ask me out you would have to do it by mail, sent months in advance, on a single 5×7 sheet of eggshell vellum, signed in blood and sealed in gold and scented with a light mist of the new fragrance by Alan Cumming, just so I could throw it away without becoming repulsed.

• It is a good life, if I watch myself. Kind of like when I used to diet, but now instead of limiting calories, I will not allow negative self-talk. I cut out insults like I cut out carbs and it is hard as hell because I crave self-abuse like hot, fresh sourdough bread, but you know you have to be nice to you if you are going to live together.