Quotes from Sasha Velour

Everyone who passes through 'Drag Race,' and especially the people who are able to have really big careers after the show, has a responsibility to the queer community to do a good job of representing queer people across the board to be kind and loving.

I love being kind of reserved and serious and then having these explosions of passion when it comes time to perform.

I discovered that my drag really does speak to people on an emotional level. I also discovered that people are sometimes put off by an intellectual approach to drag.

I want to do performance that inspires people to be true to themselves and has tangible impact on the community. Not just because I want to be a role model - I just think it's the best way to honor the tradition of drag.

The inspiration of my drag is the history of drag, the long tradition of drag queens being at the forefront of queer activism. That informs my drag style, and in a sense, that is the direction we need to go in the future.

Identity for Jews like us was shaped by cultural practices and family traditions rather than allegiances of place or language or class, because those things continued to be redefined for us. Drag operates along similar lines.

I want to follow in RuPaul's footsteps, which is that combination of not just personal stardom but to really transform myself into a producer of drag. That's the way to make a lasting impact on the world of drag and... to make actual differences in the queer community. I think there's no better model for that than RuPaul.

The loss of my mom really inspired me to go to a place with my performances that were emotionally honest, and I found that audiences really responded to that. People need to see heartbreak transformed into beauty.

My favorite diva is Dame Shirley Bassey from the U.K. I just love that every song she sings becomes crazy and intense with feeling. That's how I feel in my daily life.

It was definitely my grandmother who introduced me to fashion.

I'm certainly not inventing anything new with drag.

Right when I was starting to experiment with drag, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and during her chemo treatment, she lost all of her hair. And for her, the idea of being a fem with no hair was really difficult.

Some people play it safe in the world of drag - I'm guilty of it myself, sometimes - but I hope to always be a voice that encourages people to buck trends, follow their instincts, and do good in the world.

I grew up in this house of intellectuals, and for me, it wasn't, like, a negative thing. And what I've discovered is, for a lot of people, it is. But I think knowing history, liking to talk about ideas - like, I just genuinely like to geek out and go on these intellectual thought journeys.

I want to do something that is not just a pastiche of drag that's come before but is really authentically me. I try to tune out all the drag that's out there and tap into the drag that I was doing when I was a little kid - when I didn't even know the word 'queer' or that gay people were out there.

I've always been committed to tuning out the trends of drag and doing styles and fashions and performances that are really true to what I love, to the movie references I've always loved, fashion that speaks to me for whatever reason - no matter what people say.

I hope we see more avenues for representation. More TV shows and films starring queer people, especially QPOC and nonbinary folks, more mainstream press coverage of our artwork and fashion, and more representation of our interests within politics.

There are no limits to what kind of bodies, which types of people, which genders, or what races can do amazing drag, and I think the audience is clamoring fighting with each other more and more to see drag represented as fully as it possibly can be.

The cities that I go to where I can tell that they have a lot of different types of drag, I tell them that they remind me of Brooklyn, and I mean that as the highest compliment in the entire world.

It's so beautiful that drag is able to speak to so many different types of people.

Even though I present myself at the height of glamour and beauty, part of my truth is being desperate and emotional and unafraid of being unattractive.

A lot of people still have the idea that drag goes from one end of the gender spectrum to the other end of the gender spectrum, and they expect drag queens to be masculine out of drag and hyper-feminine in drag. I think that portrays a lot of binary thinking and, ultimately, a lot of misogyny.

I went to Vassar College for undergraduate and studied literature and queer theory, and all of the above. And then I took a Fulbright scholarship in Russia.

'Drag Race' has made a lot more people into fans of drag, and that's allowed local communities to grow and flourish, but it's up to individual queens to share the spotlight with their communities. I definitely want to be one of the people who does that.