“In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Anton Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!”

The first big lead that I had on Broadway was in a show called La Strada.

You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for?

The first Broadway show I ever heard was the recording of ‘Carousel’, and it was a very vivid experience.

I lost a very dear friend who lived with AIDS for about 17 years. Rejecting early treatments that were iffy, he thought he saved himself. I really miss him a lot.

I’ve been fortunate in my career to have performed in revivals of great musicals and to have originated roles in musicals that have in turn been revived. And I’m not dead!

George M. is where I met my dear friend Joel Grey. We connected at rehearsal one day during a five-minute break. We were both looking out the same window and we knew in five minutes that we’d made a connection.

Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there’s great truth in the songs, and that’s what was so wonderful to find.

I know Mama Rose is a great role and I love having a chance to do it.

You’d look out and there’d be little babies watching the show, and boys and girls. They loved the cowboys, and they loved Annie. There were young people seeing the show for the first time. I stayed for two years because I enjoyed it so much.

I love Some Enchanted Evening, and If I Loved You. And as I sing them more and more, I find new favorites.

It was one of the most exciting, perfect evenings of my life, my solo debut at Carnegie Hall. And knowing we were all there to raise money for Gay Men’s Health Crisis made the evening an extraordinary experience.

I’d like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie.

Working on behalf of companion animals is so important. We start to realize how healing they are.

Singing lessons are like body building for your larynx.

“Into the Woods” was… a lot of running around in the woods! I can’t wait to see the show again. People didn’t realize it back then, but kids still come up to me-young people-and they talk about it. It really made its mark.

I feel strongly for gay marriage to be accepted.

I realised quite early on that, although I wasn’t trying to make a career speciality of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.

Every time you have to make a choice about anything, think Does this go toward or away from what I want? Always choose what goes toward what you want.

If there’s anything about the business that I love and that I’m extremely happy about, is that my career started at that time and that I met some of the greatest entertainers at that time and some are still here.

I’ve met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.

I’m a lot happier in people’s living rooms weekly than I think I would be if I was really, really relying on a movie career to keep me fulfilled and excited.

I’ve been very fortunate in my collaborators throughout my career.

Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent.

I’ve spent various periods of my career being thought of as various things, various degrees of substance and ideas.