Ruth Westheimer
Planned Parenthood is a very important part of my professional life.
I'm a Zionist who believes that every person has to have a country of their own.
The early socialization of a child is crucial.
Before I became an orphan of the Holocaust my early family life was stable. I grew up as a German Jew in Frankfurt, and I was in a household with two loving parents and an adoring grandmother who spoiled me. My mother helped my father in their wholesale business and they went to synagogue every Friday.
When I was in Switzerland, I still had the fantasy I could have saved my parents and family if I'd stayed in Germany. All nonsense. If they had not made the sacrifice to send their only child to Switzerland, I wouldn't be alive.
I have some afflictions, like diabetes 2, but I take care. I sleep well.
I would never have dreamt that I would live in this country and that we would see swastikas painted at the door of a psychology professor at Columbia University.
I don't believe in honesty at all costs.
If Congress wants to get involved in the business of morality by allowing a moment of silence in our schools, I support that. But if our representatives in Washington are truly going to be moral leaders, then they have to do more than just tell us to pray for guidance.
At the age of 16 I immigrated to Palestine from Europe, where I became a member of the Haganah, the main underground army of the Jews.
I want to be like Madame de Stael.
I learned to assemble a rifle in the dark and was trained as a sniper so that I could hit the center of the target time after time. As it happened, I never did get into actual combat, but that didn't prevent my being severely wounded. I almost lost both my feet as a result of a bombing attack on Jerusalem.
If not for the Kindertransport, I would not be here today.
I love small things. I love them.
It is impossible to deny that people in power face more temptations than ordinary citizens.
Even top fashion models get critical about one certain part of their body that they do not like. So perfection is impossible.
Now were it up to me, I would abolish all warfare.
It is good to be Dr. Ruth.
I do remember all of the songs of my childhood and they helped us to cope with being orphans. But the memories of my parents in my early childhood and the solid foundations of socialisation and strong values that they gave me never left me for one day.
When I started the radio program in 1981, not many people were talking about sexuality. Not many people were talking about AIDS or HIV.
I'm a very lucky mother.
Luckily for me, I don't depend on seeing every patient who comes through my door to pay the rent, and so if someone is involved in an activity that I don't like, I just don't accept that person as a client.
I'm very lucky, because it's a combination of the German, the Hebrew, the Swiss, the French, and that accent helped because as soon as people heard it they knew it was me.
My father taught me to study, study, study hard and he sent me to a very good Jewish school even though it was not near the house.
My parents sent me to Switzerland on a Kindertransport.
When some women literally throw themselves at you, it's easy to get confused and think that every woman is eager for your attentions.
I once went with my grandson to a county fair where you shoot a water pistol at the clown's mouth. We came home with twelve stuffed animals and a goldfish.
Hugh Hefner was instrumental in my career, you know, by promoting the free-speech movement. People forget that about him.
I'm old-fashioned and a square.
Contraception has to be available for anybody who needs it.
If someone has gone through a lot of emotional pain, including the loss of loved ones, that person may try to build a shell around his or her feelings to protect him- or herself from the pain.
I may have been on the cover of People and gone on 'David Letterman' and 'Arsenio Hall' because they had young audiences I wanted to talk to. But at the same time, I always did serious books or taught seminars.
Every person deserves respect.
People like me have to stay away from politics.
I believe my soul isn't entirely German because my home is so disorderly.
Because of my experience with the Holocaust, I don't like to lose friends.
For many years, I didn't have a home.
We just do not know what is normal.
I was 50 when I had my first show, so I was never on television with a short skirt or decollete; I never tried to look or be younger.
When I came to this country, people told me that if I wanted to teach and work here, I would have to take speech lessons to lose my accent. But it helped me greatly, because when people turned on the radio, they knew it was me.
Why should only rich men have young, beautiful women? Rich women should have young, beautiful men.
I'm never embarrassed to say, 'I don't know.'
In 1947 and '48, everybody in then-Palestine belonged to some group. I chose the group that was the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces.
The most important thing for my father was learning. Because nobody can take that away from you.
I lived, while 1 1/2 million Jewish children died. So I have an obligation to repair the world.
German Jews don't show their emotions in public.
I'm not a type of grandmother sitting in a rocking chair. I'm a lot in the theater. I'm a lot at concerts. I'm a lot at friends.' I like to go out for dinner. I don't have to be home one night a week if I don't want to.
You see families at a restaurant and the kids are on the phone and the adults are on the phone. It's just a catastrophe.
When it comes to sex, the most important six inches are the ones between the ears.Collection: Sex