Gilbert Baker

I love going to cities around the world and seeing the rainbow flag, knowing that it's a safe place where I can be myself.

My parents and I didn't speak for 10 years. It took a long time to rebuild that relationship.

The rainbow flag is beautiful because it's about love. The Confederate flag is ugly because it's about hate. It's pretty simple from the art level: beautiful versus ugly.

I came out because I fell in love. It wasn't a terrible, horrible, damn thing. I was in love with somebody, and I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.

When I fell in love, all the shame and guilt I carried with me for years suddenly vanished.

Anita Bryant is an important figure in gay history because she enraged a generation of people who got active.

You don't have to live a lie. Living a lie will mess you up. It will send you into depression. It will warp your values.

I decided that we should have a flag, that a flag fit us as a symbol, that we are a people, a tribe if you will. And flags are about proclaiming power, so it's very appropriate.

A rainbow is something in the sky, so a rainbow flag fits.

We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that.

A true flag is not something you can really design. A true flag is torn from the soul of the people. A flag is something that everyone owns, and that's why they work. The Rainbow Flag is like other flags in that sense: it belongs to the people.

I was afraid my family would lock me up and give me electroshock. I was a screaming queen.