Top 50 Leslie Jordan Quotes

I knew I was as gay as a goose. Then I ended up in West Hollywood, where the queers hang from the trees. I was home. I had landed.

You just can’t move back with your mom at 64. It just doesn’t quite work.

I was there when APLA was started in somebody’s living room.

I don’t sing. I don’t dance.

I don’t know what the other celebrity’s lives are like but I lead a true celebrity life. I get pampered. I’m always alone.

I always call my journey into sobriety, my journey into queerdom, because I really did hate everything about myself.

I can spot a homosexual at forty paces.

I have a lot of shame, and until I got sober at 42 years of age, I had never voted. I was just a hippie.

I will never be a Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, the kind of actor that disappears into a role.

I fell out of the womb and landed in my mother’s high heels.

For years, I had a Christmas ornament I had bought at a Cracker Barrel that read ‘Deck Them Halls, Y’all.’ It always tickled me.

All my boyfriends are in their 20s.

My theater professor once said to me ‘Leslie, you are capable of genuine artistry but you’re the laziest actor I know. And yes, you can make people laugh, but you’re going to become a parody of yourself and end up in Hollywood if you’re not careful.’ And he’s right, I did all of that.

I’m Southern, I’m gay, I’m little – I get Ma’am’d a lot on the phone.

I don’t watch scripted television, and I finally figured out why. It’s my line of work, you know? It’s what I do.

I am not a drag queen.

You know, you learned that very young in American culture that the feminine boys don’t do well. And yet, I had a dad who was a lieutenant colonel in the army. My dad was a man’s man, but he still adored me. And somehow in the midst of that, I still grew up hating the sissy in me.

One of the main reasons I started writing these one-man shows was that this really evil casting director once said to me, ‘you’re peripheral and you’ll always be peripheral. You’ll come in with the zingers and have very little to do, so just accept that and take the money.’

I’m very proud of my Southern accent, it’s part of me.

All my life I’ve always been so ashamed of being feminine.

I have not left the house after 6 o’clock without a paycheck for years.

My mother and grandmother created this secret garden where it was OK for boys to play with dolls, and it was OK for little boys to sew potholders.

There are two or three ways to combat homophobia – one is through humor. The second is to put a face on it.

I wasn’t what you would envision for the son of an Army man. I liked doll baby clothes and twirled a baton. But my aunts and uncles tell me how much he loved me.

Growing up, the main thing I was ashamed of was my voice. It is very effeminate.

In a perfect world we’d want gay people to play gay people, but I think that’s a good rule of thumb: Whoever gives the best audition should get the part. My problem is getting anybody to hire me for anything other than queens.

I honor the sanctity of all religions – I’m not here to put them down. But the only religion that I personally embrace is the religion of kindness.

I do so many cruises out of Miami, all the RSVP ones. And I’m on the cruises out of Fort Lauderdale all the time. I’m always doing cruise after cruise out of there.

I’ve always sang a little like a 16-year-old girl, but even Ann-Margret stopped after a while and brought it down a bit.

I’d do an exercise video because there are so many gay men with these perfect abs and they do exercise videos. So I did an exercise video where my stomach looked like my water’s about to break.

I’m Southern to the bone.

I’ve never been known for being a team player, but I’ve adjusted to being part of a big cast and it has worked out beautifully.

I really think ‘Straight Outta Chattanooga’ is one of my best shows.

The thing that I love about ‘Will & Grace’ is that there’s a clear-cut reason for my character to be there. I come in with the zinger. My character seldom has much to do with moving the story ahead. I know exactly what my job is there. It’s just a party, basically. I’m just having a ball.

I got sober at age forty-two.

I was reading Agatha Christie as a little boy.

I don’t know why all three, my comedic idols are… women.

My gift is to be funny.

I’m not Kathy Griffin. I can’t do 1200 seat venues. I need 300, 400 something like that.

I’m a true Hollywood success story – knew no one, had no connections.

In 1993, I premiered my solo piece ‘Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life So Far’ at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre. It then went to New York and ran for several months Off-Broadway.

I love, love, love South Florida.

Lesbian humor is nothing like gay men’s humor. We’re sillier.

From my years on ‘Will & Grace,’ you’d think I’m Madonna.

What’s been interesting is that the more famous the person is, the less they seem to care if I talk about them.

Big Brother’ has put me off people. I thought, ‘I’m gonna get a dog.’ I really think I’m going to become more reclusive. It was nothing like I expected. I was so naive about it.

I’ve done every series that had gone down the toilet.

I’ve always been interested in forensics and the way they solve things.

I’m a worker bee.

I’m on the road almost eight months of the year.