Quotes from Sasha Velour

When it comes to drag, my favorite thing we can do is kind of push against the beauty standards of magazines. We don't need to look like supermodels. That what really makes drag special and makes it unique and makes it queer.

Unfortunately, this world is not an easy place.

Uniformity is not very interesting or sustainable - it's boring.

To costume yourself in the way that you fantasize, to make that a reality, and then to go right into the universe looking like an exceptional being takes a lot of courage.

Queer art is as much about starting conversations as it is about making dramatic statements.

At the end of the day, I just love drag so much that it's not enough for me to be a successful drag queen. I want to do right by my drag community as a whole... creating opportunities for other performers, documenting and uplifting amazing drag, and generally just contributing a lot of love and respect to our fabulous little world!

I love biting off way more than I can chew, and that's a great motivator because it forces me to rise to the occasion.

I love 'Threepenny Opera'; I was exposed to it as a little kid because my parents, my mom and my dad, had bonded, when they were dating, over 'Threepenny Opera' and introduced it to me, a child, who could barely understand it. But I immediately gravitated even from that early age.

I hope that people look at Brooklyn as kind of a drag utopia, because that's what it's been in my experience - all genders and bodies and ages doing drag.

The way I've always looked at drag has been a little bit different maybe than other people because the drag community that I started doing drag in is full of trans people and women and people of various educational backgrounds, of different ages.

For a while, my favorite movie was 'Vertigo.' Everything in that movie was captivating to me.

Even if I hadn't won 'Drag Race,' even if I'd never been on, I'd still be working my tail off, creating live shows, magazines, videos, anything I possibly could!

I find inspiration in the movies I've loved, especially all films ever made about Dracula.

Absolutely anyone can and must do drag.

The truth is, a lot of people go to drag shows, really, for very light entertainment, and I think sometimes maybe we don't even give the audiences enough credit as to what they'd be down for.

Drag performance is really emotional.

There are some amazing people around who can tell stories about drag from the '60s and in New York, like the amazing club kid drag. About drag from around the world. So people should be asking questions and listening to stories.

It's important in drag to challenge things and present your own vision.

I try to write an essay every time I speak.

I think sometimes you have to imagine a fantasy world in which we are represented and visible the way we should be.

The political nature of 'Threepenny Opera' is immediately visible. I just think that that's not always a part of acceptable and fun entertainment that we're exposed to - that political side.