“The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically.”

Why am I so famous? What am I doing right? What are the others doing wrong?

I’m not weird, just different from people who aren’t different.

I just don’t want to be hampered by my own limitations.

progress, whatever your definition of it, is not inevitable.

It’s very often the artist who gives a voice to the voiceless by speaking up when no one else will.

The audience is the best judge of anything. They cannot be lied to. Truth brings them closer. A moment that lags – they’re gonna cough.

A human being is only interesting if he’s in contact with himself. I learned you have to trust yourself, be what you are, and do what you ought to do the way you should do it. You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.

I don’t enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don’t enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt.

When I was working a lot, I felt guilty as a parent. I couldn’t pick up my son every day from school, bake him cookies and that kind of thing.

One thing’s for sure: now when I look at Funny Girl, I think I was gorgeous. I was too beautiful to play Fanny Brice.

Love comes from the most unexpected places.

No one should have to conform to some mythical concept of the ideal family.

When they tried me out as a host on TV, I found that I just couldn’t be that gregarious person. I was stranger than that.

I have one son. Of everything I’ve done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you.

I’ve always liked working really hard and then doing nothing in particular. So, consequently, I didn’t overexpose myself; I guess I maintained a kind of mystery. I wasn’t ambitious.

I still like my antique clothes.

Well, nobody’s perfect.

I don’t like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick.

Ninety-four percent express favorable feelings. Fully 85 percent expressed very favorable feelings about their most recent massage, with 37 percent rating it a perfect ten-out-of-ten.

Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It’s proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.

Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.

I don’t have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I’m glad I don’t have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.

You gotta know when it’s time to hang up. But when I finally go, let me go out on stage, my perfect ending. Don’t let me go when I’m sick or asleep. Let me be in motion.

Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, ‘Oh, everybody’s perfect except me. Everything’s smooth except me.’ But nothing is smooth.