Jeffery Self > Quotes

“I suppose falling in love is finding that one person who can appreciate and understand why you want the things you want and do the things you do.”
― Jeffery Self, 50 Shades of Gay

“First of all, being gay is far from a curse. It’s more like an extra order of fries at Wendy’s because the lady in the window isn’t paying attention while she fills your bag. It’s awesome.”
― Jeffery Self, Drag Teen

“Being a gay kid in this decade of equality and anti-bullying and all that stuff that gay celebrities liked to talk about on TV had so many advantages, but one of the biggest disadvantages was that I couldn't blame why I felt like an outsider on being gay anymore. Gay was in, but that didn't mean that all gay people were.”
― Jeffery Self, Drag Teen

“Sometimes the people you love the most are the most difficult for you to be around, because they see right through your crap and don’t mind telling you.”
― Jeffery Self, Drag Teen

“Drag is armor, darling. No matter how you look at it. Once I become Bambi, nobody can hurt me. Not my family, not the drunk assholes at the bar, nobody. A good lace-front wig and the right contouring are as strong a bulletproof vest as I’ve ever needed.”
― Jeffery Self, Drag Teen

“But the only thing that we should really be worried about is making our lives into the lives we want them to be. Maybe things don't get better until we make them better.”
― Jeffery Self, A Very, Very Bad Thing

“Graceful has never been a word you immediately pinned to my physical prowess; a flailing, tumbling human version of Jenga was a tad closer to accuracy.”
― Jeffery Self, Drag Teen

“Out of my way, Mary!" some gay boy fresh off the Amtrak shouts as he charges ahead to the future that awaits him, with the ghosts of all the tribesmen who came and went before rooting him forward, shouting back in unison, "No names! No names!”
― Jeffery Self, Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I’ve Spent My Time

“Sometimes now, almost two decades later, when I'm walking around New York, I'll pass a building that floods me with memories of a john or a trick that I turned in whatever apartment window I find myself staring up at. I'll stand on the sidewalk, looking into a window where "Jeff" once stood and made his ever-coveted hundred bucks. I can see him straining to carry his suitcases of worry up to another apartment to make another coin to put in his piggy bank of shame. And I can see him leaving again a half hour later, with a pep in his step from being a little bit richer, but with the glassy-eyed worry that he's ruining himself in the process. And I want to rush across traffic to this young version of myself, grab him, and look him directly in the eyes. First, he'll probably be terrified of this older, puffier, thicker walking portrait of Dorian Gray before him, but once he stops screaming at the ghoulish glimpse into his future, I want to hold him and tell him, "This will all be worth it.”
― Jeffery Self, Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I’ve Spent My Time

“I was so lucky to have had a Gary in my life; his friendship influenced just about everything about me. I continue to wonder just how different a world would be if more Garys had survived. If guys of that generation had gotten to stick around and the tribe was still full, I suspect things would be a lot more joyful, colorful, loving, and creative. Perhaps every young scared-out-of-his-depth gay boy new to the city would find a loving support system like the one I had, and maybe, just maybe, the big gay world would be a better place. Or at the very least, a place with better modern musical comedies.”
― Jeffery Self, Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I’ve Spent My Time

“...next to people who raise monkeys as their children, nothing is creepier to me than being 100 percent happy all the time.”
― Jeffery Self, A Very, Very Bad Thing

“You'll read about at just about every possible turn I found new and innovative ways of self-sabotage. Chewing up and spitting out opportunities while making enemies out of friends, friends out of whoever hands me my Prozac prescription every month at RiteAid. There's a lot of that in this book. Self-sabotage I mean. Certainly more than self-love or self-care.”
― Jeffery Self, Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I’ve Spent My Time

“Yes. Of course I hate the crap he spews. And of course I want to shake them and make them understand But isn't that what they've done to me? How would me doing it to them be any better? Spew is spew, no matter who is saying it.”
― Jeffery Self, A Very, Very Bad Thing