Harvey Forbes Fierstein

Arnold:
I think my biggest problem is being young and beautiful. It's my biggest problem because I've never been young and beautiful. Oh, I've been beautiful, and God knows I've been young, but never the twain have met.

Bertha:
You have a high voice for a lesbian!

Bertha:
Did your mother have any children that lived?

Bertha:
Just wait until you see my act: Bertha Venation and her Dance of the Virgin.

Murray:
Which she does completely from memory.

Bertha:
B*tch!

Arnold:
I know you'll find this hard to comprehend, but I want more out of life than meeting a pretty face and sitting down on it.

Bertha:
Personally, I never enjoy sex with someone I know.

Arnold:
Our Lady of High Standards!

Alan:
Why are all the mirrors covered?

Arnold:
So we don't see the pain in our faces.

Alan:
Why is everyone sitting on boxes?

Arnold:
To make sure there's pain in our faces.

Ma:
(sotto voce) You told me he was Jewish!

Arnold:
Out-of-town Jewish.

Ma:
Friend-friend, or euphemism-friend?

David:
He used to be a euphemism, now he's just a friend.

Ma:
What lose did you have? You fooled around with some boy. Where do you compare that with a marriage of forty years? Come on. I'm not one of your pals

Arnold:
I lost someone I loved.

Ma:
So you felt bad. Maybe you cried. Forty years I lived with this man. He got sick, I took him to the hospital. I gave them a man. They gave me a place to visit on holy days. How could you know how I felt? It took two months before I slept in our bed. It took a year before I could say "I" instead of "we." How dare you?!

Arnold:
You're right. How dare I? I couldn't know how it feels to put someone's things in plastic bags and watch garbage men take them away. Or how it feels when you forget and set his place at the table. The food that rots because you forgot how to shop for one. You had it easy! You had your friends and relatives! I had me. My friends said "At least you had a lover." You lost your husband in a clean hospital. I lost mine on the street! They killed him in the street! Twenty years old, laying dead, killed by kids with baseball bats! That's right, Ma, killed by children! Children taught by people like you that queers don't matter! Queers don't love! And those that do deserve what they get!!

Ed:
Whoops.

Arnold:
Whoops? Ed, did you say "whoops"? No, Ed. "Whoops" is when you fall down an elevator shaft. "Whoops" is when you skinny-dip in a school of piranha. "Whoops" is when you accidentally douche with Drano! No, Ed. This was no "whoops!" This was an AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGGGHHH!!

Ma:
Arnold, think about the boy. The way you live is bound to affect him!

Arnold:
Ma, David is gay!

Ma:
He hasn't even been here a year!

Arnold:
He came that way!

Ma:
Nobody comes that way!

Arnold:
What an opening!

Arnold:
You want to be a part of my life, I'm not editing out the parts you don't like.

Arnold:
I have taught myself to sew, cook, fix plumbing, I can even pat myself on the back when necessary, so I don't have to ask anyone for anything. There's nothing I need from anyone except for love and respect. And anyone who can't give me those two things has no place in my life.

Arnold:
Anyway, it's easier to love someone who's dead. They make so few mistakes.