Harvey Fierstein

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

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

"I've been dating since I was 15 years old, and I just don't seem to do it well."

"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."

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."

"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."

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

"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."