Robert Brustein Quotes

The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won't shut up.

The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn't do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people's houses.

If people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom.

When I was very young, I was attracted to men and to government. I assumed that my attraction for men would likely interfere with my activity in government. I could not have believed that today, my attraction to men is much more politically acceptable than my attraction to government.

I don’t believe that opposite sex and same sex marriages are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same sex relationships are over.

Social conservatives [are] nostalgic for a time when the government dictated whom you could live with or sleep with. But the rejection of moral codes is no more a rejection of morality than the rejection of speech codes is a rejection of free speech. Our morality laws are falling, and we are a better nation for it.

Part of the new morality of the '60s and '70s is a new attitude toward homosexuality. The homosexual men and women have organized to fight for acceptance and respectability.

I'm 58 years old. I got married for the first time - it's about time, right? Growing up as a gay woman, you just don't ever think about that, and then I thought, about 10 years ago, 'You know, I think within 10 years gay marriage will be legal.' And here we are, 10 years later, making it legal.

Aspects of guilt or handwringing that one might expect in a film set in the '50s about women who discover their love for other women - a lot of these things are not in 'Carol.'

It's not like the right for gay people to marry just happened.

Love stories require an obstacle between the lovers, something that keeps them from one another. You have to yearn for the love that can't be fulfilled. And it gets harder to conceive of viable cultural or racial or sexual obstacles between people as we move forward progressively.

I did some research into what was going on in terms of the sexual revolution that was happening in the '60s in the gay community and particularly in the drag world. Before the '60s, guys doing drag would dress like their mothers or iconic Hollywood actresses.

Hopefully, it gets to a point where, down the line, people don't have to come out.

We have the freedom of speech. We are able to hold hands in protest and stand up for what we believe in and have people hear what you have to say.

To me, it's mind-boggling to think that homosexuality was forbidden up until 1967.

I have gay people in my family who weren't able to openly discuss homosexuality, and I feel like that's shifted, especially here on the coast.

That really important freedom in my life, the freedom to marry, came about because of choices that were made by policymakers who had power over me and millions of others.

Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed. Don't ever apologize for your sexuality. Just be you.

Being gay is no longer a taboo subject in Germany.

If I can, in any way, give people the courage to say, 'Actually, no, the nonsense stops right here,' then I want to be a part of doing that. Especially if that means that our folks will be more free.

There are two or three ways to combat homophobia - one is through humor. The second is to put a face on it.

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.

Mostly actors are progressive because we are accustomed to all the nuances of human life, whereas dictators just try to flatten it all out. So we usually try to stand up to dictators like, well, we won't mention names.

Homo-sexuals should not be censored, but neither should those who oppose their point of view. That's called free speech.

The acceptance of homosexuality is the last step in the decline of Gentile civilization.