Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

Drag wasn't always counterculture.

I don't think drag will ever be mainstream because it's counter to what the mainstream directive is, which is picking an identity and sticking with it for the rest of your life.

Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life.

I'm dealing in rock'n'roll. I'm, like, I'm not a bona fide human being.

'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

I came to the big city and I started to get involved in the punk scene and stuff, and I wanted to sort of brand myself. I made a pretty conscious effort to be a different type of person.

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

I didn't grow up watching TV or going to McDonald's or listening to mainstream music. Like, the casting agents are looking elsewhere for the cheerleader role.

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.

Sometimes 'Rookie' is written about like, 'Finally! Something for alternative girls!' and I'm like, 'No!' Obviously it's not for everyone, but I used to think that there are cheerleaders, and there are art kids.

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 was a bit of a loner at school because I was into what I was into, that sort of scene; that is where the whole mod thing started, when I was 14-15.

I represent a kind of underground, punk side of drag.

I'm into exploring the fringes of a culture.

I can't speak for all queens, but Sharon Needles is definitely a different entity from me as Aaron Coady.

My sister, who is a wonderful and beautiful actress now, when she was 11 or 12, she would go out and take pictures of the punk parties in the desert. She used to have blue hair, and she got kicked out of Las Vegas Day School for having blue hair.

I've always been like a black hippie.

Some people say, 'Oh you're a weird queen. You're a punk queen.' All queens are weird! I don't care if you're in a sickening gown or dressed as an octopus. You are treating every day as if it were Halloween. You are donning a character and a persona that isn't real.

I think there's a whole group of kids out there that don't relate to the glitz and glamour of hanging out in clubs and partying all the time. So I think some people are just more real than that, and I think our fans are those kind of kids that need something to relate to, and I think we're the band to do it.

It's like our little thing: you can take the girl out of the punk, but you can't take the punk out of the girl.

I love drag, and I love people who gravitate toward it. Because the people who do drag are people who dance to the beat of a different drummer.

You're 28, why are you going to goth clubs? Do what I do, sit at home & wait to die. You don't have to kill yourself, you're just waiting.

The ’60s was the last time when large groups of people in the West searched for alternative modes of being. In a society like India’s, which is still not fully modern or totally organized, and has a great deal of tolerance for otherness in general, they find the cultural license to try other things, to be whatever they want to be.

He doesn’t pretend,” the punk pixie said. He nodded toward Doyle. “Nice rings. You got anything else pierced?” “Yes,” Doyle said. The boy smiled, making the rings in the edge of his nose and his bottom lip curl cheerfully with it. “Me too,” he said.