Billy Porter > Quotes

“If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“You are the only one who’s going to be able to hold yourself to a higher standard, because no one around you will know the difference.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“I am in your midst, without apology. I’m here to stay. I’m here as I am. And if you have a problem with that—fuck you!”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Fifteen minutes early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Sometimes folks need preaching. Sometimes the message of love, inclusion, and equality needs to be direct and clear.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“There’s a lesson in every triumph, but more importantly, in every disappointment. Find the lesson.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“But every day I remind myself that nothing matters more than extending the legacy of the angels in my life. It’s my devout conviction that if I’m not enabling and encouraging the underprivileged and the vulnerable, then I haven’t justified their confidence in me, and I haven’t done sufficient justice to their gifts.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Congressman Lewis, I know the Oscars may not be the time or place for politics, but I must ask you, for those of us who are feeling activist, resistance fatigue—what would you say to us to encourage forward momentum and engagement?” Congressman Lewis’s eyes lit up, he gave me that knowing look, and he clicked right in. “We can neva give up! We can neva give in! We must resist! We must fight for what’s right. Equality for all!” .”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“every war ever fought has essentially been boiled down to “my God is better than yours.” It’s just not right.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Your service is leaning into your truth, your queerness, your authenticity. Yeah, that thing you been told needed to be fixed. Yeah, the thing everyone told you would be your lifelong liability. You are enough, just as you are.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“It’s time to remind the world who we are. So don’t be scared. Don’t be terrified. Don’t wait till the battle is over; fight now. Because love always wins.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“this Bible situation is problematic. It’s been weaponized by the oppressor to prop up hypocrisy and to justify hate. Hate the sin but not the sinner? Y’all can miss me wit dat!”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“But this God thing. Yet again I feel abandoned by the concept. Always have. I feel used. God is used as a weapon to control. I don’t like what humans have done to the idea of God. Maybe there is no God. Maybe it’s just us humans down here fucking everything up, and when the universe is tired of the evolution experiment the world will simply implode.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Actually, the entire system is bullshit. It’s not broken. It’s working exactly how it was set up and intended to work. To keep us Negroes in our place! James Baldwin wrote, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“I don’t even have the words to describe how it feels. What it feels like to be loved. To have support for your love. To receive it like never before. I’ve never felt it. I didn’t know this is what it’s like.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“What is family? Most would say family means a group of people closely related by blood or marriage as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins. This is family of the biological kind. By the same token I’ve learned in my life experience that family can also be of the chosen kind. As queer people we very often find that our chosen families are the ones who love us unconditionally and pick up the slack in support of our personal truths and humanity when our biological family members don’t have the tools.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Do you want to be a star, or do you want to be an artist? Being a star for fame’s sake is ego-driven. Being an artist requires stripping away ego and grounding oneself in service.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“I clutched my pearls through this page-turning read that’s laugh-out-loud funny—she’s a ki-ki, darling! It’s equally heartbreaking, suspenseful, and always fast-paced. The category is: legendary.”
― Billy Porter

“The show-stopping red velvet and pink tulle look also rocked an embroidered uterus motif that I selected to support women’s reproductive rights amid the current political upheaval about the issue.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“It's easy to be who you are when what you are is what's popular.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“The knowledge of perception is key to success. One must know how one is being perceived from the outside.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“All I wanted was to protect her from the mean people who made fun of how she walked. She couldn't help walking the way she did, it wasn't her fault. She was born that way. And mommy always said that God didn't make mistakes, so she was born just as she was supposed to be. Why didn't other people know that? Why wouldn't they leave her alone?”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“We, as artists, are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet. Please don’t ever stop doing that. Please don’t ever stop telling the truth.”
― Billy Porter

“My therapist has named the shit: grief! I never metabolized my grief, and my whole life has been filled with it. You gotta metabolize your grief, gurl. It’s killing you. Literally. I saw myself as an adult. I split off from myself at seven years old and began to experience myself as a grown-ass man. I had no other choice. How was I to know that those sessions under the cloak of”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Kids need a place to engage, a place that makes them feel like they matter. It was such a gift and a blessing that those “enrichment” programs, rebranded “entitlement” by our cynical government officials, existed.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Elie Wiesel wrote: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“And just FYI, we’re not called Orientals anymore—we’re Gaysians!”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“It’s my devout conviction that if I’m not enabling and encouraging the underprivileged and the vulnerable, then I haven’t justified their confidence in me, and I haven’t done sufficient justice to their gifts.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“Lenora was a Fosse girl. She had learned from the mater, the actual master himself. Fosse was a galvanizing choreographer, who fascinated and spoke directly to me for a range of reasons. The first was the fact that the most iconic aspects of his work were inspired by his imperfections. Because he was losing his hair, hats became an integral part of his pageantry. His shoulders were rounded, giving rise to his signature slouch. He didn't like his hands, so gloves made their way into his numbers. He was pigeon-toed and couldn't achieve the kind of turnout expected in ballet, so he developed a style in which the legs are turned in and the feet point at each other. I was intoxicated by the way he had spun his ‘flaws’ into stylistic gold. It felt like a message for me that my own ‘flaws’ and vulnerabilities might actually be arrows pointing straight to the heart of my power as a performer, and – dare I say – my artistry.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“the ultimate peace that comes with living one’s personal truth unapologetically. Always believe in yourself. Always choose you first, no matter the cost, for”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir