“If everybody went to balls and did less drugs, it’ll be a fun world, wouldn’t it?”

“In real life, you can’r get a job as an executive unless you have the educational background and the opportunity. Now, the fact that you are not an executive is merely because of the social standing of life. That is just the pure thing. Black people have a hard time getting anywhere. And those that do are usually straight. In a ballroom, you can be anything you want. You’re not really an executive, but you’re looking like an executive. And therefore, you’re showing the straight world that I can be an executive. If I had the opportunity, I could be one, because I can look like one.”

“A house. Let’s see if we can put it down sharply. They’re families. You can say that they’re families for a lot of children who don’t have families. But this is a new meaning of family. The hippies had families and no one thought nothing about it. It wasn’t a question of a man and a woman and children, which we grew up knowing as a family. It’s a question of a group of human beings in a mutual bond.”

“Shade comes from Reading. Reading came first. Reading is the real artform of insult. You get in a smart crack and everyone laughs and “hee hees” because you found a flaw and exaggerated it, then you’ve got a good read going. If it’s happening between the gay world and the straight world, it’s not really a read. It’s more of an insult, a vicious slur fight. But it’s how they develop a sense of how to read. They may call you a faggot or a drag queen. You find something to call them. But then, when you are all of the same thing, then you have to go to the fine point.”

“Shade is, “I don’t tell you you’re ugly, but I don’t have to tell you because you know you’re ugly. And that’s shade.”