Gilbert Baker

“The rainbow flag is a symbol of freedom and liberation that we made for ourselves.”

“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.”

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

“Our movement is evolving. The movement to liberate our sexuality as a human right, that's an ongoing struggle.”

“Flags are about proclaiming power... that visibility is key to our success and to our justice.”

“The reason the rainbow flag endures is because people own it. It means something to them.”

“Once I was finally liberated from my Kansas background, the first thing I did was get a sewing machine, because it's 1972, and I have to look like Mick Jagger and David Bowie every single second. Taffeta jumpsuits.”

“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.”

“That's really how I ended up making the first flag - I was the guy who could sew it.”

“Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the '70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible, how important it was to come out, and that was the single most important thing we had to do.”

“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.”

“In 1978, the first flag was organic everything. It did have eight colors: the six colors of the rainbow we see today plus hot pink and turquoise. But pretty quickly on I realized that I would never be able to satisfy the demand for them by hand-dying fabric and these colors.”

“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.”

“Vexillography is a very big word! Vexillography is really the high science and art and understanding of flags and their history - the academic word for flag making and heraldry.”

“In 1978, when I thought of creating a flag for the gay movement, there was no other international symbol for us than the pink triangle, which the Nazis used to identify homosexuals in concentration camps. Even though the pink triangle was and still is a powerful symbol, it was very much forced upon us.”

“When I was young, they thought I was from outer space. I was the only gay person they probably knew, and they struggled with that. Everybody knew I was gay. They just didn't want to talk about it.”

“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.”

“Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.”