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.
Leslie Jordan
When I was little, I was like a magpie, which is a bird that's attracted to shiny things. They'll build their nests with Christmas tree tinsel.
I fell out of the womb and landed in my mother's high heels.
Honey, I conquered Netflix. I watched 'em all.
I'm very proud of my Southern accent, it's part of me.
I grew up in the Baptist church and, honey, they baptized me about 14 times. It never did take.
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.
At one time, when I was younger, I exercised regularly and had a 27-inch waist.
I talk about things that happened in my life. Now, do I embellish? Absolutely. Come on, we all do it. It makes for a better story. But it always comes from a germ of truth.
My daddy - whenever he wanted to teach us a lesson, he'd tell us a story. It's an Old South tradition.
I'm a worker bee.
I'm truly 95 percent a hermit.
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.
It's so nice that today, young gay men have a choice about who they want to hang out with.
I don't go out at night.
You almost had to have grown up in the church like I did to realize how dark that is, how dark it is to be a kid and be told that God hates you or that there's something wrong with you.
I love my family dearly.
There isn't a lot I can do on this planet, but I can be funny.
There are two or three ways to combat homophobia - one is through humor. The second is to put a face on it.
There are many paths to God. What really bothers me - and what I think is the height of arrogance and stupidity - is when one group believes their way is the only way. That really gets my dander up.
My sister was cute, she said, 'Oh my gosh, you're an overnight success.' 'Oh,' I said, 'this is the longest night.' I've been at it since 1982.
What amazes me with 'Will & Grace' fans is how young they are and how straight they are. The guys always come up and go, 'You are so funny on that show. My girlfriend watches that show.'
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.
My mother had found this album of all these old slides from the '50s of me as a kid and I said, 'We should have these made into pictures because the color's so beautiful.' There were pictures of me from 1955 as a little baby wearing all these elaborate outfits, and in these pictures was this amazing story of a gay man and his mother.
I'm an aging show pony and they trot me out here and there.
I will never be a Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, the kind of actor that disappears into a role.
In the 1980s we had the huge catastrophe of AIDS and you would walk down the street and see someone who was dying. It was horrendous.
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 can tell when I meet you, within three minutes, how you were raised. When I met Lady Gaga on the 'American Horror' set... beautifully brought up.
One job I did turn down was 'How I Met Your Mother.' My character was 'creepy gay guy.' That was the character. The script said, 'Creepy gay guy gets in elevator every day with Jason Segel character and he's just being creepy.'
I figured out quick I had to write my own ticket. I realized I could tell stories and make money from it.
Nobody really knows if there's a God - not Oprah, not Joel Osteen, not the Pope. Nobody has touched or felt or conversed with God. They say they have, but let's get real. I think that is what keeps me from coming out as an atheist. I think to myself, even the atheists don't know that there isn't a God. Nobody knows anything.
I always call my journey into sobriety, my journey into queerdom, because I really did hate everything about myself.
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.
All my life I've always been so ashamed of being feminine.
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've always been interested in forensics and the way they solve things.
I was reading Agatha Christie as a little boy.
The only thing I know how to do is be funny - that's it.
I had 20,000 followers and I treasured that. People'd say, 'Oh that's nothing.' I said, 'What are you crazy? That's 20,000 people that wanna hear what I gotta say!'
Film's a director's medium. Stage an actor's medium.
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.
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.
From my years on 'Will & Grace,' you'd think I'm Madonna.
I'm Southern to the bone.
That's the secret to happiness. Find something you can make money at that you really love to do.
People say, 'Oh, you do theater!' And I say, 'Honey, I do theater to get better TV and film roles.'
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.
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 don't mind playing gay because there's a whole plethora of gay roles out there, but if I get asked to play one more Southern hairdresser, I'm going to scream.
