I think it's very important that LGBT narratives are spoken from LGBT perspectives. I think that what I do is important as far as creating a lane for myself to be independent.

I don't know [whether] if I didn't get paid, or my career didn't keep going where it goes, if I would keep doing music.

I think what's keeping me making music - the money is great, but I make music for the visibility.

It may look like things have gotten better, because everyone is semi-being appreciative. Not appreciative, but conscious of people being gender fluid and all those things.

Living New York, everyone has a million hustles, so I was doing party promoting, working the doors at parties, doing that whole nightlife thing.

My love of words, alcohol, and stage antics basically cemented me as a rapper, but it wasn't a career that I wanted to do. It was just, "I like to do all these things at one time."

Not to sound egotistic, but I've gotten kind of good at it. It's something that came naturally to me, but my rapping is rooted in my writing.

I didn't choose to be a rapper; it's just my talent.

I am a rapper. The reason why I was against the whole rapper title is because I know so many people who want to be rappers and they're not.

I think when I dropped The Eulogy is when it became more [about] feedback because that's when Pitchfork wanted to review it and things like that.

I don't think it was much of a forum for positive or negative feedback; it was mainly, "How can I make somebody laugh?" It wasn't a serious thing where I needed people to give me feedback.

I think you'll be a great teacher, " said Gary. That's his role in my life: blind encourager and ambassador of false senses of security.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don't back down.

You don't need a plan; you just need to be present.

I'd like to think that I'm getting slightly more mature as time goes on, but I don't know if my fiancee would necessarily agree.

We must become the people we want our children to be.

I was really not familiar at all with Edward Snowden. I like to get that right out of the way and really learned most of what I know from Oliver's [Stones] script.

When I was a teenager, the number one book I was most obsessed with was 'Gone with the Wind.

There's a manager (Billy Martin) I could play for.

Now seen...now gone, The butterfly flits in and out Through fence-hung flowers; But a life lived so close to them I envy...though it's here and gone.

I've learned an encyclopedia version of life from Oprah Winfrey.