Harvey Fierstein Quotes

The world is full of more interesting things than my voice.

I have a lot of faith in President Obama. The thing that seems to be true of him is that he doesn't speak when you would expect him to speak. He's very measured in his response to things. He likes to get all the facts first before he shoots his mouth off. It makes me crazy; it makes a lot of people crazy.

CBS really wants me on TV. That's their aim. My aim is to have an all-gay sitcom someday, with heterosexuals as token guest stars. Let them be the next-door neighbors for a change.

If you deny yourself commitment, what can you do with your life?

I often say that if you want to really want to understand the contract of marriage, just ask anyone who has been divorced. The marriage contract is one of property rights. Or maybe you can look in the Bible to see what Adam had to say about divorce, since Eve was his second wife.

It would be nice to redefine ourselves - at the moment we are drowning in diversity. That's not a bad thing, its just going to take a while before we refocus.

I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different.

As the book writer for one big smash and one big smelly flop, I always wondered if anyone knows just what goes into making a great musical. When a show is a hit, the critics trip over themselves not knowing who to laud and applaud the loudest. It's that marvelous score, those urbane lyrics, that irreplaceable star. But only when a show is a flop, does anyone notice the book writer. And then it's always our fault.

Accept no one's definition of your life, define yourself.

There are easier things in life than being a drag queen. But I ain't got no choice. Try as I may, I just can't walk in flats.

It's a lot of fun to play someone you don't normally think of yourself as.

You may feel powerless as a child, but the world will one day be yours. And you're responsible for it. So, seize the day and take charge of it.

There's nothing I need from anyone except love and respect, and anyone who can't give me those two things has no place in my life.

My father was brought up in an orphanage in the Catskills. He was a factory worker. And because his family wasn't there for him, family was everything. We could disagree inside the house, but outside the house it was us against the world. So when I became a drag actor, he looked sideways but said okay.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas.

I have to work really hard, eight shows a week, to get a nice check as an actor. But when I write a play, and it's a - knock wood - hit, the checks come in for many years.

Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

When we excuse homophobia as a matter of opinion instead of treating it as a destructive social illness, we invite fear to explode into violence ... If we are ever to scrape the black rot of prejudice from the heart of our nation, we must stop excusing those who give it expression and even excuse. The next time someone dares to say, "Just because I don't approve of homosexuality doesn't make me a bigot," we must all answer back, "Yes, it does. Not only does it make you a bigot, it makes you a criminal, a danger to me, my family, my community, my city, and my country.

When a politician like Marco Rubio is willing to sacrifice his career defining immigration reform legislation solely to insure that gays and lesbians are denied equal protection under the law, we have to admit that we're under attack. This is not pragmatic politics at work. These are the policies of bias, exclusion and unfairness.

As soon as I started writing, other writers stopped wanting me acting in their shows - maybe they thought I was going to rewrite them.

So, did I work with Warhol? I worked with him less on that play then I did on other things. He actually did a portrait of my rabbit and some other stuff. Warhol was definitely ... Warhol.

Nothing binds a people to their leader like a common enemy. Voters don't change governments during war.

Just because I said that's what I want doesn't mean that's what I want. I mean, that's what I want but that doesn't mean that I'm necessarily ready for it.

But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.

I guess a drag queen's like an oil painting: You gotta stand back from it to get the full effect.

To work all the time is to be incredibly lucky.

In Torch Song, I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure, which also colors how you react to doing other things.

Is a gay play a play that has sex with other plays?

Never be bullied into silence.

A child's kiss is magic. Why else would they be so stingy with them?

Political movements always belong to the young.

How often are the perpetrators of hate-crimes discovered to be self-loathing? Valued individuals do not strike out against strangers.

I actually may do a musical next year ... not one that I've written; one that I may star in. Plus my concert and other people's work and all of a sudden you've got a very full life.

Anyone with a smart phone is a potential eyewitness cameraman capturing and transmitting stories at speeds that turn Reuter photos and traditional reporting into, well ... yesterday's news.

Please, people, do not f- with depression. It's merciless. All it wants is to get you in a room alone and kill you. Take care of yourself.

I am thrilled - I can't stress that enough - thrilled when I see kids getting active.

(...) When things get too good... I get out. Well. I guess to a degree we all do. But most pull out; ride off into the sunset with a wave and a wink and a "Heigh-o-Silver." But not me. I am a pusher. I nudge and kvetch and cry and demand until I leave my partner no possible alternative but for him to run for his life. (...)

While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president, let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice.

When I write stuff and I help cast it, I turn away good people all the time. I may turn them down because this one's too tall and that one doesn't have a high enough voice or this one looks to old to match up with that one - there's a billion reasons not to hire somebody.

Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.

I don't believe in the afterlife, so I do think when somebody passes, it's worthy of note.

With Russia about to hold the Winter Games in Sochi, the country is open to pressure. American and world leaders must speak out against Mr. Putin's attacks and the violence they foster. The Olympic Committee must demand the retraction of these laws under threat of boycott.

Theater is my temple and my religion and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe together.

How time flies when you're doin all the talking.

You know, I always got offered other stuff. Not the romantic leads, obviously. But very often it's a role that's underwritten, where the character has no personality at all. And they need a character actor who can fill it in.

Pork was in 1971, and I stopped hanging out at The Factory by like 1973.

Also, if you want to reach people, theatre is not always the best way to do it.

Of course people are afraid. But honestly facing that fear, seeing it for what it is, is the only way of putting it to rest.

There comes a time in every Salome's life when she should no longer be dropping the last veil.

In London they don't like you if you're still alive.

I have great faith in the United States. It's the only country I would ever live in.

(...) I've always thought of myself as a kind person. Not saintly but generously thoughtful (in a bitchy sort of way). (...)

You really, really, really have to love what you are going to do in theater because it is an unmerciful life. It's six days a week. It's eight performances a week. And that's doing the exact same thing over and over and over again.

I just don't like politics. My rule is if I can put a spotlight on something, I'll do that.

I am thinking about how it feels to be a no one in the life of someone you love.

Change your mind as often as possible. Just because you thought something yesterday doesn't mean you have to think it today. Don't ever become a prisoner of your own opinion