Lea DeLaria

Sourced

• My idea as far as comedy goes has always been to push the limits of what's acceptable for a woman to do or say or be. My hero in that would be Lenny Bruce, who teaches us that words have no meaning. It's the intent behind them that is what's important.
  • Interview, Breakup Girl (1999-07-15)

• Oh please...As a standup, I tried to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room. Not necessarily in that order.
  • ibid.
  • When asked if she thought of herself as a performer, or as a performer with an agenda.

• Never point at anything beige and call it cool.
  • Lea's Book of Rules for the World (May 2000) Rule # 4

• Learn all the rules... then break them.
  • Lea's Book of Rules for the World (May 2000) Rule # 10

• He looked me right in the face and said, "You fucking bulldyke!" And I thought to myself, "Oooh, what a smart man! Why, I'll bet he took one look at me and knew I was white, too!"
  • Bulldyke in a China Shop

• Did you read [Holly Near's book]? Let me save you the trouble. This is the most exciting sentence in the book: ..."I feel like a lesbian when I'm making love to a woman." Gooooooooood, Holly! Well, the major difference between me and Holly Near is that I feel like a lesbian when I am BREATHING!
  • Bulldyke in a China Shop

• What do you mean, you "don't believe in homosexuality?" It's not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isn't necessary.
  • Box Lunch (liner notes)

• They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who've been together for twenty-five years can't get married, but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!
  • Box Lunch

• I'm at West Virginia University to do a show, right, and they've done all this fucking publicity about it...so when I get to my show, who's waiting for me but five hundred Christian protestors with great big signs. "Lea DeLaria is going to hell." Not generic "gay is not good:" "Lea DeLaria is going to hell." Which is what I need five hundred strangers to tell me, like twelve years of Catholic fuckin' school wasn't enough, right?!
  • Box Lunch

• You know the people I'm talking about, you see them at every pride rally, they get up on stage and go, "We're just like everyone else! We are like them and they are like us. Straights are like us and we are like them! We - are like - EV - eryone - else!" And then a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall drag queen walks by with three feet spangled platforms and he opens up his butterfly wings, f-f-f-f-f-f-f! Oh, we're just like everyone else, all right! We have our own culture and our own way of doing things and we should celebrate that and stop licking straight ass!
  • Box Lunch

• "I mean, what the fuck is it with you guys? I thought this was supposed to be a lesbian party. Lesbian? Perhaps you'd like me to tear it off so you qualify." Guido protests. "I have a right to be here, this is the United States, you know, you can't discriminate." "I can't discriminate? Oh, that's ripe, coming from a straight white man. What's the matter, baby doesn't feel like he belongs? Well, why don't you try a place that was set up just for you? Like the world!"
  • Lea's Book of Rules for the World

Unsourced

• My mother said to me, "Why do you have to call yourself a dyke? Why can't you be a nice lesbian?" "Because I'm not a nice lesbian, I'm a big dyke!"