Sandi Toksvig Quotes

Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.

Gay people - generally speaking - have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.

One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible.

Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out.

I didn't want the responsibility, I didn't know how to handle the responsibility of speaking for the gay community. I always felt like I owed them a huge apology for coming out too late.

As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics.

In the 1980s, there weren't a lot of role models for gay teenagers.

I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.

My truth is I am gay and out, and if I can't do that in my music, then I don't need it. Fortunately, I do feel like there is a movement against homophobia, and I hope to be part of that.

I am the most well-known homosexual in the world.

I was horrified when Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett said gay actors should stay in the closet. They were saying to people that they should live a lie and not be liberated, to live in fear of being found out.

I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?

Someone actually asked me once if I used coming out as a publicity stunt. It's cool that we live in a time when being gay could be seen as helping your career.

If every gay person were to come out only to his/her own family, friends, neighbors and fellow workers, within days the entire state would discover that we are not the stereotypes generally assumed.

Some people in the gay community were very upset with me for not coming out on their terms.

I was very lucky to hear the story of Harvey Milk, it was life-saving for me. I wanted to share it in case it helped others, but the story of one gay man isn't going to do it.

The whole principle of coming out is that everyone knows someone who's gay. The minute someone comes out, no one can be a bigot, because someone they love is gay.

I feel like I've contributed monumentally to the success of the gay movement in America, and if anyone wants to argue that, I'm open to it. You're welcome, 'Advocate.'

We figured out as a community of gay people, we have to take care of our own.

I'm so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative. So it's amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I've been out of the closet for a while, and so I'm free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.

Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the '70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible, how important it was to come out, and that was the single most important thing we had to do.

I feel like I'm opening the doors for more people. That they feel more comfortable being out. Especially in the hip-hop community.

I'm not ashamed to be gay.

By the mid-noughties, I found that I was no longer the only openly gay person in every setting. At one point, a couple of Moscow magazine publishers even got the idea that they should actively headhunt gay and lesbian staff.

I hope that any gay kids see me as beacon of light, not just in sport but in general.