The Best Of What Was Said In PAPER and PAPERMAG All Year

"I used to be all apologetic for being on stage...I'm still nervous but I've changed my act so  I just chat. The shit that comes out of my mouth is just awful...I have to get the drummer to start playing just to shut me up."
-- Jessie Ware on onstage banter. From "Listen Up: British Songstress Jessie Ware Is About to Take Over the American Airwaves With Her Sexy Soul Tunes."

"Harvey called me on the phone. He said, 'What are you doing'?' I said, 'Nuthin.'"
-- Cyndi Lauper on teaming up with Harvey Fierstein on Kinky Boots. From "Bootylicious"
"We discovered YouTube the same way a lot of other people did -- by watching 'Lazy Sunday.'"
-- The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone on YouTube. From "This Just In: The Lonely Island Guys Have It Their Way On Their Hilarious New Record, Proving Once Again Why They're the Internet's Biggest Stars."

"When she first walked into our session I was like, 'I had such a crush on you, bitch!'"
--Miguel on meeting Mariah Carey to work on their track "#Beautiful." From "Keeping It Cool: Miguel Is Making R&B Look -- and Sound -- Damn Good Again."  


"I'm what you call 'love rich.' We didn't have all the money in the world, but I had all the attention. I grew up spoiled with love."
--Ciara, on coming from a humble Texas household. From "Le Femme Ciara: The Hip-Hop Star Gets Down and Girly."

"The thing I remember most about it was that it was a nice, crisp morning in California. I remember being excited and (this is not a surprise to Jordan) I almost started crying. I picked him up that morning and we were about 500 feet from the front gate and he said something lovely like, "I can't imagine doing this with someone other than you."
--Key and Peele's Keegan Michel Peele on the duo's first day on set of their Comedy Central show. From "Mad(Funny) Men: Key & Peele On Being "Reality TV Whores" and Playing "Undateable" Characters."

"There's probably a ton of people who are going to be like, 'I don't give a shit about her now, she's 1,000 years old.' But that's what's great about music. If you're 16, you can listen to Bikini Kill or Le Tigre, and if that helps you get interested in feminism it's like, 'Awesome, my job's done.' When you worry about it, that's when you start doing things like trying to write the song you already wrote, or trying to pantomime your younger self on stage. If you dance like your mom, then you dance like your mom. That's who you are now."
--Kathleen Hanna on returning to music with her new band, The Julie Ruin. From "Gone From Music For Nearly a Decade, Kathleen Hanna Returns with a New Album."

"There was a line in the script describing her stare as being 'childlike, except children aren't scary,' and that informed the way Crazy Eyes allows her eyes to light up for certain people. She's also a bit of a nail-biter."
-- Orange Is the New Black's Uzo Aduba on developing her wild-eyed character's trademark stare. From: "Uzo Aduba On Playing TV's Craziest Character."

"This is complete nonsense... There's no rational basis for it whatsoever."
--David Wondrich on the great whiskey-with-or-without-an-e debate. From "David Wondrich on His New Brooklyn Gin and Why the Spelling of "Whiskey" Is Nonsense."

"Don't dress trendy. Classic things are the most chic. I hate seeing things that are démodé. Things are like that right now, and it is not good. It doesn't work. Jeans always work. Classics are chic. A classic Chanel jacket will never be démodé. It's still perfection. Perfection is not about money. It is the way you put it together, the way you edit."
-- Stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele on the clothes that will never go out of style. From "Jeremy Scott Talks to Legendary Stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele." 

"My whole thing is creating future music, and bringing the renaissance into the future."
--A$AP Ferg on his sound. From "A$AP Ferg's '90s Gangsta-Rap Style Takes Us Back to the Future."

"Walt teams up with Jesse to kill the Nazis. They do! Then they have a showdown. Jesse kills Walt, then himself. Baby Holly knows nothing. Flynn eats breakfast."
--Comedian Emily Heller on how she thought Breaking Bad would end. From "Retta, Julie Klausner + More Predict How Breaking Bad Will End"

"People just wanna see my butt."
--Iggy Azalea on the media's obsession with her twerking skills. From "Rising Rap Star Iggy Azalea Is the Real Thing."

"Tonight it's trashy, teased, tampon-wearing."
--Nightlife duo the Dairy Queens describing their club look. From "We Like the Looks of These 14 NYC Clubhoppers."

"Beautiful babes who can't count."
--Parks and Rec writer and comedian Megan Amram's response when asked to describe L.A. in three words. From "Beautiful People Los Angeles: Megan Amram."

"I think it's a good thing that the cool people moved to Brooklyn. It's like the West Bank of Paris."
--NYC nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch on Brooklyn's cultural rise. From "A Look Into the Life of Susanne Bartsch."

"Max Fish was the opposite of a gentrified bar. It had those aspects to it, but it wasn't about moving in and bringing the neighborhood up to a higher class. That was not the point of the bar. It was meant to stay on the same level of the neighborhood as they found it."
--Artist John Ahearn on the influence of now-shuttered artists' bar Max Fish on the Lower East Side. From "An Oral History of Max Fish."

"It's important to keep your life simple, otherwise you'll never get anything done."
--Artist Kaws on living a low-key life. From "From the Streets to TV to Fine Art Galleries, KAWS Is Everywhere."

"I just want girls to know they can do whatever they want."
--Artist Petra Collins on her controversial art depicting the female body. From "The Kids Are Alright: Petra Collins and Her Collective of Young Artists Aren't Afraid to Have a Little Fun."

"It's not just the artist as victim, it's the artist as perpetrator."
--Creative Time's Anne Pasternack on the negative effects of artist-gentrified neighborhoods. From "As Head of Creative Time, Anne Pasternak Has Changed How and Where We Experience Art."

"I have no idea how to contact him. If I said, 'Hey, I think your dead grandmother's here,' he'd think I was out of my mind."
--Chef John Keller on his sense that Geraldo Rivera's grandmother is haunting his new restaurant, Apt 13. From "Chef John Keller On His New Restaurant and the Ghost of Geraldo Rivera's Grandmother."

"We went to Six Flags in Santa Clarita, and rode the Colossus. One of the performers kept asking me, 'When do we take our shirts off?' I had to explain to him, 'This is not that kind of film.'"
--Artist Joe Sola on working with gay male porn stars for his film Riding with Adult Video Performers. From "Joe Sola Has an Ear For Art."

"Dog biscuits are just like cookies but no sugar. I was always a little rebellious."
--Author Dana Goodyear on eating dog biscuits as a child. From "Dana Goodyear on Anything That Moves and Eating Like a Survivor in an Apocalypse."

"I always laugh at that because when we first started going to film festivals with Let's Get Lost, women especially would say, 'Why aren't I in the film?' and I would say 'Oh well, I'm sorry. I am just meeting you right now,' and they would say something like "Chet stayed at my house for six months," or, "He was our babysitter." Can you imagine hiring Chet to be your babysitter?"
--Bruce Weber on Chet Baker's popularity with women. From "The Legendary Bruce Weber Talks Chet Baker and Iowa Wrestlin'"


"Everyone under 26 seems gay to me. Both men and women. I often ask myself, 'Is everyone gay?' There's this gender fluidity that I think is generational, and that's new."
-- Amy Poehler on millennial sexuality. From "Amy Poehler Is One Busy Lady, But She'll Still Make Time For You."

"I think one of the funniest things about Christmas is a living crèche or a living nativity scene. They're frightening. I find them scarier than any Diane Arbus photo. I go to them like people go to haunted houses at Halloween, but I scrunch down in the crowd because I don't want people to see me. Then I'd feel as perverted as they are."
--John Waters on what's funny about Christmas. From "John Waters On His One-Man Christmas Show and The Horrors of Living Nativity Scenes"

"One of the most important things you can include in your 'About Me' section is that you're "actually" something. "I am actually pretty laid back," "I'm actually pretty open to new things," "I am actually not sure what to expect on here," "I am actually literally," "I am actually literally writing this from inside a hollowed-out tree," "I am actually literally a ghost."
--Carey O'Donnell and Eli Yudin on the over-use of the word "actually" in OKCupid Profiles. From "The Top 10 Things People Need to Stop Putting On Their OkCupid Profiles In 2014."

"I try not to read too much online because I always get my feelings hurt, even if someone's flattering you. Like somebody tweeting, 'Call me crazy, but I think Amy Poehler's attractive.' And you're like, 'OK? Thank you?' Or like someone writing, 'I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I'd have sex with Amy Poehler.'"
--Amy Poehler on staying away from Social Media. From ""Amy Poehler Is One Busy Lady, But She'll Still Make Time For You."

"One of the things that New York City doesn't have is cultural preservation. They may save a building, but they certainly don't preserve culture. Or else CBGB wouldn't be a clothing store."
--Everybody Street director Cheryl Dunn on New York City's evolution. From "In a New York Minute."