I've been dating since I was 15 years old, and I just don't seem to do it well.
— Harvey Fierstein
Theater is my temple and my religion and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe together.
A musical takes two to five years. You have to love it to put in the years.
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.
Nothing binds a people to their leader like a common enemy. Voters don't change governments during war.
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.
It's a wonderful world. You can't go backwards. You're always moving forward. It's the wonderful part about life. And that's terrific.
I got a lovely check today from being a writer that I earned by sitting at home. That's rewarding.
Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas.
Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.
A child's kiss is magic. Why else would they be so stingy with them?
I burned out on AIDS and did no AIDS work for a couple of years. I was so angry that people were still getting this disease that nobody can give you - you have to go out and get it!
Political movements always belong to the young.
To work all the time is to be incredibly lucky.
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.
My play Safe Sex was picked apart because critics thought it was untrue. It was a play in which no one had AIDS, but the characters talked about how it was going to change their lives.
Time will tell us what we did and didn't do.
I have the world's worst taste in men, so now I simply have wonderful relationships of the friend kind, but trying to settle down with somebody? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm beyond that.
When I went into 'Fiddler,' I wondered about the response I'd get - the backlash because I'm openly gay. There was none. I toured Canada and America, and not one single review suggested that I played the role gay or that I seemed anything but Tevye.
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.
How often are the perpetrators of hate-crimes discovered to be self-loathing? Valued individuals do not strike out against strangers.
I have great faith in the United States. It's the only country I would ever live in.
I really am a theater person. That means you put something out there, and you let it go. Tomorrow night is a new performance.
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.
I don't believe in the afterlife, so I do think when somebody passes, it's worthy of note.
Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.
Beware of anyone who says they know. Trust me, they don't, or they wouldn't have to say they did.
I do believe we're all connected. I do believe in positive energy. I do believe in the power of prayer. I do believe in putting good out into the world. And I believe in taking care of each other.
To me, if a heterosexual has a right to do it, then I have a right to do it. And if it's important to the gay youth - who are now setting the agenda - then its important to me.
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.
There are times when I don't take roles because I don't want to be perceived a certain way.
And I believe that you never be limited in what you do, so I like to do movies, I like to do television.
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.
Pork was in 1971, and I stopped hanging out at The Factory by like 1973.
Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.
I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous.
State-sanctioned marriage is a civil contract, period. A contract is not a judgment of moral value. It is a legal agreement between two parties that testifies to a meeting of minds between those consenting entities. It is not a religious act or rite and so has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or Steve or even Harvey.
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.
I just don't like politics. My rule is if I can put a spotlight on something, I'll do that.
As soon as I started writing, other writers stopped wanting me acting in their shows - maybe they thought I was going to rewrite them.
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.
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.
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.
Always admit when you're wrong. You'll save thousands in therapy... and a few friendships too.
I actually pray everyday, but I don't believe in God.
I am thrilled - I can't stress that enough - thrilled when I see kids getting active.
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.
Well, I always looked at Mulan as a movie about a lesbian coming out.
Also, if you want to reach people, theatre is not always the best way to do it.
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.
