Best 69 quotes of Harvey Fierstein on MyQuotes

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

Actually, I think the average voice is like 70 percent tone and 30 percent noise. My voice is 95 percent noise.

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

A musical takes two to five years. You have to love it to put in the years.

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.

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

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.

A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise.

Beware of anyone who says they know. Trust me, they don't, or they wouldn't have to say they did.

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.

But I'm not adverse to the idea of Torch Song as a musical. It would just be different. Because the play will always be there exactly as it was, and in a musical you could tell a lot of the story through songs.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

I got a lovely check today from being a writer that I earned by sitting at home. That's rewarding.

I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

In no way be bullied into silence. Hardly ever permit on your own to become made a sufferer. Acknowledge no one's definition of one's lifetime; define oneself

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

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.

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.

I really am a theater person. That means you put something out there, and you let it go. Tomorrow night is a new performance.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Never be bullied into silence.

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

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.

Political movements always belong to the young.

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

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.

Somebody should talk to Dan Quayle and tell him natural blondes don't have dark grey stripes on the sides.

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.