Tituss Burgess Quotes

I’m very much an introvert.

I hover closer to earth than I do the clouds.

I feel most at home when I’m alone. That’s not sad. It’s just I feel closest to source and connection when I’m by myself.

I do not like attention. Oddly enough, I do everything I can to avoid it.

I prayed fervently for a series regular job on a show that had the perceived caliber of talent that ’30 Rock’ had.

I’ve always given attention to detail. I’ve always given my heart and soul into a lyric, into a line.

Singing is how I express everything. Hunger, needing new clothes… it’s all through song.

I wish Howard Ashman was still alive so I could just meet him and tell him his words are magic. It’s so fun to say. He has such great alliteration and paints the most vivid images with his lyrics

So much of what I do is inspired by and for the LGBTQ community and for everyone but, just, being a theater kid and wanting to do stuff that represents us in a positive light.

Actors are a peculiar breed.

To somehow shrink so that you might be more comfortable is a foreign language to me. It’s a trait that I’ve never had. And that I hope I never, ever have.

Personally, I’m very private, so when my door is closed, it means I’m unavailable, and when it’s open, it doesn’t mean you can come in.

I came from the Sticks, literally. I grew up in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, just outside Athens, Georgia.

I’m black. I’m gay. I’m culturally Christian. I am a walking target on so many levels, and it is horrifying and a cross that very, very many of us who look like me have to bear.

I don’t want to sound pretentious or meta or anything, but I don’t write until it comes to me… People know when something is inspired and when something is not, and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

Sondheim is New York.

I’m a Pisces – I can’t rest if you aren’t resting well.

Carol Kane is just as warm as you would think she is, and she is so smart and really a living legend and has so much to offer.

For me, having walked through Times Square so many times as a broke and starving artist, as a TV star, and now having other hopes and dreams, it just represents possibility and the moment of full circle.

Even on my worst days… the influx of joy that I get from interactions with fans… is a treat.

I was on ‘Blue Bloods.’ Which I think got cut.

The people I’ve met have been inherently delicious and warm and appreciative. It makes those 14-hour-days so worth it.

When I got to New York, all I wanted to do – or so I thought – was win a Tony award or, at least, be nominated.

Often times, if you’re a bit of a crossover artist, audiences see you as only one thing.

My mom is quite religious, and she got the name Tituss from the Bible. It’s one of the smallest books in the Bible. I don’t know why she added an ‘s,’ but she just did.

Outside stimulation makes me nervous!

I feel like communication is the same whether you’re cooking for someone or singing or writing a song or writing a play or ordering from McDonald’s.

‘Penny Dreadful’ is so realistic. The tonality is so earthy and so real that I actually believe it is in the realm of possibility for all these extra species to exist among us.

I never had any trouble being myself. Myself was a problem for a lot of people, but I didn’t have a problem.

I have always thought to do my best work.

This is a fickle industry. Here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t want to spend all the time reflecting. I want to spend it doing.

I fell asleep during ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’ I fell asleep during ‘The Hunger Games,’ all of them. I cannot stay awake. As soon as a movie starts, I’m asleep!

I worked at Ruby Foos early on as a host. I was only there for a little bit, but I had several odd jobs to pay the bills before that. And being in New York for the first year, I got here in 2003, and it was a very exciting but very scary time not knowing how you would make ends meet and me trying to meet people.

One thing about my dinner parties – they’re never planned. I go to the grocery store, and I buy whatever is on sale. I get a lot of it, and I just send out a mass text: ‘I just bought food. Dinner’s at 8. Text me if you’re coming.’

I feel like I’ve always had a sordid sense of humor, and it’s only gotten more twisted as I’ve gotten older.

I’m praying for healing for our nation. For retaliation that yields constructive results. Peaceful protests. We need each other.

I’m very involved in church and social-justice issues, and my personality is far more introspective.

Life moves so fast, my friend. I am just lucky and happy to have the people I care about there along with me, watching all of this occur.

We were always in church, and always singing, so once I realized that music was something that I had a knack for, I sort of latched onto it, and it helped give me an identity and figure out who I was as a person. It informed my way into theater, which informed my way into television.

I had this one audition – I won’t say the casting director’s name, but she was on the phone the whole time I sang. I was literally doing my audition, and she was on the phone. So I guess whatever it is she was ordering for lunch was more important than the high C’s I was belting out.

Outside of the oppressive nature that the South offered to the black people, black gay people, black gay people who happened to be Christian, who wouldn’t want to leave? I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I tell you, my naps are epic. They win awards.

The critics are not writers – they’re not a part of the creative process; therefore, they should not influence how I go about doing my next bit of work.

When it’s your turn, it’s your turn. That’s just the way it is.

I know that I need a lot of sleep, and while I’m filming, I probably won’t get it.

I don’t enjoy attention as much as people may think I do.

I’ve been in New York for going on five years now, and I always thought I would make a mark and do something but I never thought it would be this big of a deal. I’m so blessed and I’m truly honored.

There is absolutely nothing that you can control except showing up and doing your job.

People have to work to maintain happiness. It’s easy to be miserable. It’s easy to stay miserable. It’s easy to live in a place where nothing’s working and not being able to work your way out of it. It’s much harder to choose happiness, to choose laughter, to choose a positive.

I’m writing a musical. I am. I was able to buy the rights to ‘The Preacher’s Wife,’ which starred Whitney Houston… I’m writing a whole new score and all the lyrics for it.

I get to do some unbelievably layered things. The material that I’m given is so complex, and I’m so grateful for it, so I welcome any opportunities to push boundaries.

I don’t go out much. I have people over, and I cook dinner, or we play the piano, or we watch TV.

The first role that I got on Broadway was supposedly for a white man. But I had some producers who fought for me and allowed me to come in.

I’m not one of those people to outgrow my initial blessings.

There is still a great deal of self-hatred that we refuse to deal with because we are still measuring ourselves against the norms of a masculine, heterosexual world. That is the backdrop with which we measure the man.

I will work for Tina Fey forever.

I make amazing fried chicken. The secret is taco seasoning.

I am well aware of my good fortune, and I only hope to diversify so I can do what I’m already doing for more people as opposed to being so large and so great that I no longer want to do the thing that got me here.

I collect musical theatre anthologies. I have a whole library of them.