John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

Anyway I feel myself a bit on the edge on the art world, but I don't mind, I'm just pursuing my work in a very excited way. And there isn't really a mainstream anymore, is there?

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

Punk allowed women to stop looking feminine. Oh, the relief.

Punk rock is very rebellious, of course, but it also means thinking for yourself.

Where I come from, if you weren't a drag queen or a radical thinker or a performance artist of some kind, you were the weirdo.

Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

I had no boundaries at home, so I had nothing to push against. I only rebelled with clothing when I was 14. I would wear purple Doc Martens and had purple streaks in my hair, dirty jeans, and baggy tops. Very Britpop. Anything that wasn't girly or feminine. My mother hated it.

I remember when I was in art classes, I hated following the assignments. And I would get in trouble for doing something totally different or taking it in a weird direction.

Drag wasn't always counterculture.

Punk will never be dead to me. It's my life. I can never just drop this lifestyle. It embodies me.

You don't have to burn books, you don't have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self.

Metal has its own code of cool, but it's not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you even if, at the time, much of the world was going to mock and reject it.

People always had something to say about the fact I was odd looking, bigger than other people, that I was awkward. When I discovered punk, I bought into it. That look, combined with being fat, made me even less of what people thought a young woman should be.

I'm not an artist or a collector. I'm a skateboard kid with no one to tell me if I'm not doing things the right way.

I've learned some of the greatest life lessons from growing up in the skate and punk rock communities.

I never wanted to be part of any scene, I never wanted to be a part of anything, I wanted to do my own thing. Those are the lessons I learned from punk rock.

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.

Good fashion is like rock music: all anarchy and revolt.

That's what drew me to rock music in the first place - that sense of remaking the world on your own terms.

When I heard 'Dookie' by Green Day for the first time, it unlocked something in me, like, it's totally okay that I'm a little bit weird because these guys are a little bit weird. It made me want to pick up an instrument and do that.

I like art. It's another way to rebel.

I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.

I think have my own style; no one has ever tried playback singing before. I might release a punk rock song that perhaps other won't appreciate, but I like doing my own thing. I make music for my own satisfaction, not for money or fame.

Doing drag in a male-dominant culture is an act of treason. It's the most punk-rock thing you can do.