Manila Luzon Quotes

Acting was a godsend. I found myself because I loved acting.

During 'Hawthorne', I was constantly trying not to be too outrageous and keep it serious. This has been so refreshing for me because it's such a good outlet for the inner me to just be. That's the whole point of 'Glee' anyways - to just be who you are and that's enough. I really feel that way on set.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

I choose to express myself.

The truth sets you free. It's a very liberating thing, when you say this is who I am warts and all and then you can just get on with life. It's amazing.

I feel a kind of permission and freedom in my work that I might not allow myself in my real life.

I feel like I've been known for having long black hair, so when I took all my extensions out and cut my own hair, it was the most freeing thing, I think, I've ever done. That was my 21st year: I cut my hair, I was doing Broadway; I was living in New York, and I was really having a moment of becoming my individual self, and it was amazing.

I've realized the person that I've always been and this gift that I've always had just had to be brought to light. It surprised me the most that being more who I am and not who I thought I had to be would make me successful.

Getting to be authentic is so liberating.

If you stop trying to restrict yourself by defining yourself and love in other people's terms, it's the most liberating thing.

All things to do with drag are inherently therapeutic because the realization of your own insanity is the beginning of sanity.

Drag was not only my introduction to womanhood, but my introduction to entertainment. It was the first time I realized that I could move a crowd.

'Meenaxi' was a lesson in liberation. It taught me to be a free spirit and understand the pleasure of my work by being different people, just like Meenaxi is.

Art is the set of wings to carry you out of your own entanglement.

Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it.

I felt more comfortable playing other people than being myself, when I was a kid. And then, the tables turned. Through my performances, I've become more comfortable with who I am, and then I just bring more of myself into the people that I play.

To hang out in a gay bar or put on a sequined halter top makes me feel like a total person.

All my songs are where I am.

I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

I listen to music, I read scripts, and I know pretty intuitively if I can unlock it in a way. It's actually very liberating when you understand that not everything is for you.

I wasn't born a redhead, but I was born to be a redhead.

When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place.

I just wanted to have fun for myself - I felt I had a lot to say, and I realized that I missed having a magazine as a place to express my ideas. The Times column is a place for me to unload those perceptions.

That was a major goal for me - to be able to reach and encourage more women, to encourage them to express themselves and be what they want to be. People get very trapped where they are.

The work that must be done for each woman to reconnect with her psyche and to give herself a chance to live her own life is essentially the same. The realization of the equality of all races, the equality of all beings is essential.