Audre Lorde Quotes

I can honestly say I've never thought for a second about whether a character reflects poorly on any group. All that matters to me is that the character is true to my belief in who he or she is.

I know one of the reasons I first started making Youtube videos was because no one looks like me.

We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.

There's something very important about films about black women and girls being made by black women. It's a reflection as opposed to an interpretation.

Shouldn't you be able to tell your stories from your point of view? We're dealing with that with 'Looking' where some queers are like, 'These guys are so boring! They don't represent me!' But no show can represent everything, so is it OK for us, in 'Looking,' to write about these three men and their world?

Of course I want the things I write to reflect well on me or anyone who might feel represented by me, but also, I'm not writing a guidebook on how to be or how my people should be seen. I'm telling very specific stories.

Even with the beauty stories we put out, we saw there was an opportunity to address issues of representation, identity, self-expression. We created the community that we wanted to have at 'Teen Vogue.' We were willing to lose some to have more.

As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am.

There are stories I wanted to tell, and they are not defined by what I look like.

The work is the understanding of the people that you're speaking for. The further you get away from that, the further you are from the work.

Every character and person in life needs a voice and every once in a while I get to inhabit the voice of the misunderstood.

If I can mean to people - if I can symbolize the ability to pursue gender equality, racial equality, and to be truthful about our experiences, then, absolutely, that's what I want to be.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

To be understood is to prostitute oneself

The reason why you don't see people looking like me is because I don't encourage that. I encourage you to be you.

You cannot borrow half of who you are from someone else, yet people try to do it all of the time, they just call it a relationship!

I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

I just want people to hear me and my story.

People can dress you the way they want, they can do your makeup the way they want, but they can never take away your voice.

My views on equality are pretty obvious. I mean, I did play a highly complex lesbian techno DJ on TV, but I know it's not always easy to come out and tell the world where you stand.

I take the responsibility of playing another ethnicity very, very seriously, and I promise myself and those people that I will represent them with as much dignity and integrity as I can muster.

People have a huge desire to be listened to, for politicians to take the time to understand their problems.

If I don't get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says 'openly gay,' then it's worth the risk because I've had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.

The girl next door isn't necessarily blonde and blue-eyed anymore. So I don't feel like I need to morph into that all-American thing.

I'd like to be the role model to teach other people who have Down's syndrome to be actors and actresses and to be themselves and not try to be a big shot.