Top 70 Harvey Fierstein Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”

— Harvey Fierstein

Featured in: Self-Love Quotes, Be Yourself Quotes, Know Your Worth Quotes, Personal Branding Quotes, Bullying Quotes

2. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

4. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

5. “I just want to be loved, is that so wrong?!”

— Harvey Fierstein

6. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

7. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

8. “Time will tell us what we did and didn’t do.”

— Harvey Fierstein

9. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

10. “Never be bullied into silence.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

12. “I actually pray everyday, but I don’t believe in God.”

— Harvey Fierstein

13. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

14. “If you deny yourself commitment, what can you do with your life?”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

16. “It’s through sheer will that I can sing.”

— Harvey Fierstein

17. “A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise.”

— Harvey Fierstein

18. “See, an ugly person who goes after a pretty person gets nothing but trouble. But a pretty person who goes after an ugly person gets at least cab-fare.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

20. “A child’s kiss is magic. Why else would they be so stingy with them?”

— Harvey Fierstein

21. “How time flies when you’re doin all the talking.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

23. “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!”

— Harvey Fierstein

24. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

25. “The next time you feel you have to say, “I love you” to someone, say it to yourself – and see if you believe it.”

— Harvey Fierstein

26. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

27. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

28. “Well, I always looked at Mulan as a movie about a lesbian coming out.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

30. “I have great faith in the United States. It’s the only country I would ever live in.”

— Harvey Fierstein

31. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

32. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

33. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

34. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

35. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

Featured in: Reading Quotes

36. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

37. “What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don’t change.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

40. “In London they don’t like you if you’re still alive.”

— Harvey Fierstein

41. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

42. “Political movements always belong to the young.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

44. “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.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

47. “Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don’t.”

— Harvey Fierstein

48. “Beware of anyone who says they know. Trust me, they don’t, or they wouldn’t have to say they did.”

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein

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

— Harvey Fierstein