Ted: God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change... the courage to change the things I can... and the wisdom to know the difference."
Brian Kinney: I don't believe in love; I believe in fucking. It's honest, it's efficient. You get in and out with the maximum of pleasure and minimum of bullshit. Love is something straight people tell themselves they're in so they can get laid, and then they end up hurting each other because it was all based on lies to begin with.
Tracy: Whether you're gay or you're straight, I thought we were friends.
Michael: We are.
Tracy: Well, friends trust each other. What did you think would happen if you told me? That I'd tell everyone at the store? I wouldn't have, Mike. Don't you know that?
Michael: I should've. But when you spend your entire life keeping it a secret, who you really are, you learn to stop trusting people and it becomes second nature.
Brian Kinney: If you don't earn respect when you're alive, you don't deserve it when you're dead.
Ted: Every year I always wish for the same thing - a boyfriend. Someone to love who'll love me. This year I think I'm gonna wish for something else. The wisdom and maturity to realize that I won't find what I want by looking for it. Not expect someone else to give me what I never gave myself. That I'm not a half waiting to be made a whole. And even if that special person never comes along... I'll be just fine.
[giving his speech at the Committee for Human Rights]
Michael: It's an honour to stand here today, considering a few weeks ago the doctors weren't sure I was going to make it. But I was one of the lucky ones. I'm here. And as terrifying as it was, I'd be there again to defeat a bill that would deny rights to Americans just because they're gay. I have a loving partner, two wonderful kids, a home, a small business. The truth is, I'm just like you.
[puts away prepared speech and speaks from the heart]
Michael: Actually, that's not the truth. Sure, in a lot of ways, I am just like you. I wanna be happy, I want some security, a little extra money in my pocket, but in many ways, my life is nothing like yours. Why should it be? Do we all have to have the same lives to have the same rights? I thought that diversity was what this country was all about. In the gay community, we have drag queens, leather daddies, trannies, and couples with children - every color of the rainbow. My mother's standing way in the back with some friends. My friends. She once told me that people are like snowflakes; every one special and unique... and in the morning you have to shovel 'em off the driveway. But being different is what makes us all the same. It's what makes us family.
[at the candlelight vigil for those injured or killed in the explosion at Babylon]
Drew Boyd: I was asked to say a few words tonight. I asked "why?" They said, "Because you're a hero." A hero... Because I played football? Because after a lifetime of denial I was finally honest about who I am? I don't call that heroic. What *is* heroic is standing up for the rights you deserve, no matter what the consequences. And that's exactly what those who were injured... and who lost their lives last night were doing. Or trying to before they were stopped. But they were up against a powerful opponent - hatred. Hatred spread by those that want to deny others what's rightfully theirs. In the name of *their* God, *their* family, *their* country. I guess they forgot that America belongs to everyone.
Melanie: I used to hate it when Brian would say, "There are two kinds of straight people in this world - the ones who hate you to your face, and the ones who hate you behind your back," because I knew that wasn't true, there are plenty of straight people who don't hate us. But the ones who do no longer have to do it behind our backs, they can do it in the White House, in the churches, on television, in the streets! Is that the kinda place we wanna live? Is that the kinda place we wanna raise our kids?
Debbie: A word of advice, my sweet Emmett - mourn the losses because they are many. But celebrate the victories because they are few.
Brian: We're queer. We don't need marriage. We don't need the sanction of dickless politicians and pederast priests. We fuck who we want to, when we want to. That is our God-given right.
Michael: But it is also our God-given right to have everything that straight people have. Because we're every bit as much human as they are.