Harvey Fierstein
40 quotes
Biography
"Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate."
"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."
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself."
"To the delight of millions of little children, the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple. And guess who the other half will be? Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus."
"Hello, boys. How are you all? I just love boys. [...] Hello. Are you here alone? Who are you with? ...A woman? At my show? ...We'll make believe. It's theatre."
"I’ve been travelling a lot. My boyfriend and I, we just went to Santa Fe. You know, the one named after the gay saint. Has anybody ever been to Santa Fe? …did you know it was a desert? I didn’t know it was a desert. Hated it! People had been telling me for years, if you’re an artist, a non-conformist, come to Santa Fe! I mean, it’s the place you can be yourself! The light, the light, you can paint here! You can live here, the space, the sky! – The fucking dust! I was doing an AIDS benefit there – like what else do I do with my life? – and I said, look, I’m a guest here, you’re paying for the hotel, I don’t mean to insult nobody, but I got a little suggestion for you. If I was yaz, I’d take a hose, hook it up to Colorado, and water this fucking place!"
"Do you remember at the presidential convention where they nominated Bush? Did you know what song they played to bring Bush on stage? No. “The Best of Times” from La Cage aux Folles. I said some fag pulled a fast one on them!"
"I live in a small fictional town in Connecticut."
"See, I went to an all-gay high school. Art and Design. Now the truth is it wasn’t really all gay, but they bused them in, it was the law. [...] So I went to this high school, I had friends like Pablo. Pablo used to breast-feed a porcelain doll during math. You know. My friend Lauren used to roll cigarettes on her boots."
"You’d probably just lost your virginity, I’d probably just lost count."
"We had great sex, but we argued politics. [...] Now we enjoy politics and argue sex."
"Now they know who we are. We’re counted in their surveys, we’re numbered in their watchfulness, we’re powered in their press. We’re courted, polled, placated. Now they know that we’re teachers and doctors and lawyers and priests and mothers and babies. Now they see us everywhere. Hospitals, theatres, classrooms. Obituaries. Now when they tell lies about us, we answer back. We found our voices. We know who we are. They know who we are. And they know that we care what they think."
"Also, if you want to reach people, theatre is not always the best way to do it."
"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."
"What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don't change."
"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."
"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."
"I actually pray everyday, but I don't believe in God."
"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."
"The great thing about suicide is that it's not one of those things you have to do now or you lose your chance. I mean, you can always do it later."
"I got a lovely check today from being a writer that I earned by sitting at home. That's rewarding."
"And I believe that you never be limited in what you do, so I like to do movies, I like to do television."
"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 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."