Quotes from Jinkx Monsoon

I watched 'Drag Race Thailand' without any subtitles or voiceovers or anything; I don't speak Thai but I do speak drag, so I felt like I understood exactly what was going on, even though I couldn't speak Thai. I didn't understand anything they were saying but I knew exactly what was happening.

I started drag in Portland, Oregon, but I don't feel that I came to life as a drag queen until I started working in Seattle. That's what really lit the rocket fuel in my career.

I don't think I knew Ru was a drag queen when I would see her in 'The Brady Bunch Movie.'

When I found the 'Human Nature' music video as a teenager - I've been a drag queen since 15 - I just loved that music video so much because it's such a celebration of her femininity and her sexuality. I thought it was so powerful.

I very much treat my stage persona of Jinkx as a character I've created. Some drag artists do a look-based glamour act, and when they talk they're mostly just being themselves. In my case it's not Jinkx the drag queen, it's Jerrick Hoffer as Jinkx Monsoon.

If one drag queen penetrates the mainstream and opens up a new avenue for us to take with our careers, that means all of us can potentially do that.

That openness to experimentation in Seattle is how I learned a drag queen doesn't have to just be in her pageant gear and lip syncing to top 40. Drag can be off-the-wall, ridiculous, profound.

What I love that has happened for years now with 'Drag Race' is the queens can go on to have any kind of career.

In the gay community there are not very many Jewish drag queens. I've always found that funny because there are a lot of Jewish gay people out there, so why aren't there more Jewish drag queens?

Drag has come a long way and people are respecting it, and giving drag queens and other people who defy gender norms more chances than they've ever been given before, but it's thanks to people like RuPaul, especially, who set that momentum going.

Nowadays, 'Drag Race' shows how fantastic and amazing drag queens can be, so audiences won't sit through a boring show anymore. You have to keep people entertained.

Drag queens, our whole art form is about taking inspiration from artists we adore.

I feel that drag queens impersonate very strong, independent women who inspired us throughout our lives.

A lot of people just feel really impacted and inspired by drag in ways that I don't think we, as self-absorbed drag queens, think about that often.

As drag queens, you constantly have to be coming up with, 'What's the thing no one's ever seen before?'

I was raised Catholic primarily by my mom's side of the family. But at 18, I found out there was an adoption in the family, and that I was of Russian Jewish descent on my mom's side. After that, I started to look more into the philosophies and culture of Judaism.

We should not be assuming anything for anyone else's gender, because gender is defined by the individual.

I used to hate that my lips are gigantic, and now I have huge red clown lips, and I love it.

I did 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' two years in a row in the winter in Seattle, and that was an amazing experience both times.

Almost all the Disney villain witches are gay icons.

I love puns and plays on words, which is why I love RuPaul so much.

Coming out as nonbinary was a response to a lot of criticism I got when it leaked that I'd be playing a nonbinary character on 'Steven Universe.' I never really had the words like nonbinary or gender fluid or gender nonconforming until after 'Drag Race' and that's when I first started identifying publicly as nonbinary.

Who knows where I would be if I hadn't gone on Drag Race and gotten that kick in the rear to step it up to the next level?

If you hide, you won't find the eccentric people who will be your best friends.