Ruth Westheimer Quotes

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.

Why should only rich men have young, beautiful women? Rich women should have young, beautiful men.

I worked at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.

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.

In the Jewish tradition of the Bible it says, “Speak to her softly, so that she will want to engage in sexual activity.” In today’s world, there’s a little bit of a danger in that people don’t really talk to each other. You see couples walking in the street, each one of them texting someone else. That worries me.

I think I was fortunate that even in the children’s home I had a boyfriend. How important it was, as an orphan at the age of 12, to be caressed and to be kissed and to know that there is someone who really deeply cared about me.

My parents sent me to Switzerland on a Kindertransport.

Our way is not soft grass, it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun.

You can either give in to negative feelings or fight them, and I’m of the belief that you should fight them.

Even top fashion models get critical about one certain part of their body that they do not like. So perfection is impossible.

At first I was against Internet dating because there are some inherent risks, but I’ve seen so many happy couples who’ve met on the Internet that I’ve changed my mind.

For many years, I didn’t have a home.

It is impossible to deny that people in power face more temptations than ordinary citizens.

I read the horoscope, and when I like it I smile and when I don’t like it, I say, ‘Dr. Ruth Westheimer, what’s the matter with you?’

Yes, for me Hanukkah is very sad. But the life force that’s in me makes it a wonderful holiday, too.

I have the habit of always saying thank you to police and guards who watch us.

Skiers make the best lovers because they don’t sit in front of a television like couch potatoes. They take a risk and they wiggle their behinds. They also meet new people on the ski lift.

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.

For some people, ‘ten feet tall’ is just a metaphor. For me, it’s more than twice my height!

I never talk about anything Hollywood or about politics. I will talk about how concerned I am about funding for Planned Parenthood, and how very sad it makes me when I see anything about children being separated from their parents.

The time has come when women should pay for a gigolo. Why should only rich men have young, beautiful women? Rich women should have young, beautiful men.

It’s up to the man to not be offended when she tells him what she needs. He shouldn’t say, “I know that!” And he shouldn’t say, “The woman that I had before you had ten orgasms without her telling me anything!”

I don’t have scientifically validated data, but once two people have found each other and found interest in each other, my hypothesis would be that the relationship has a good chance of being successful.

The early socialization of a child is crucial.

When I started the radio program in 1981, not many people were talking about sexuality. Not many people were talking about AIDS or HIV.

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 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.

Never to forget the Holocaust was not only against Jews. It was mostly against Jews but it was also against homosexuals, gypsies and, let’s not forget, people with disability.

I believe my soul isn’t entirely German because my home is so disorderly.

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.

I want to be like Madame de Stael.

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.

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.

I’m a Zionist who believes that every person has to have a country of their own.

I have to be true to what I think because that’s my whole career.

I’m old-fashioned and a square.

You walk into a restaurant these days, and what you see is everyone with their phone next to them. That is terrible. Instead of concentrating on the relationship, on the needs and activities and interests of the other person, they are constantly looking at their phone.

When you feel yourself being critical, whether it is of yourself or another person, stop yourself. Look for positive aspects to admire.

German Jews don’t show their emotions in public.

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 mother was a very quiet woman and people say that she didn’t get much of a chance to talk because my grandmother and I talked so much.

Part of my success is because I’m very old-fashioned.

Don’t share your fantasies unless you’re sure your partner really wants to hear them.

I love being Dr. Ruth, so I have never thought of retiring.

It is good to be Dr. Ruth.

I went to an Orthodox Jewish children’s home that became an orphanage.

I have nothing against the Internet meeting places, as long as people use them intelligently.

Many years ago, I went with my husband and daughter to Denmark. In those years, you could bring $400 worth of furniture without taxes. We had three people, we bought $1,200 worth of furniture.

The most important thing for my father was learning. Because nobody can take that away from you.

It matters a great deal that I come from a Jewish background.

I don’t want people to be lonely. I would like them to find partners.

Don’t criticize in the sack. Discuss constructively later.

I was already 50 when I started in television.

I am a very good sniper, and I can put five bullets into that red circle and I know how to throw hand grenades.

I don’t like to see teenage men wearing very tight jeans. The sight of an erection belongs in the privacy of the bedroom, living room, or kitchen floor.

I’m never embarrassed to say, ‘I don’t know.’

A lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained.

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.

I’m a super good shot.

Contraception has to be available for anybody who needs it.

Don’t stint on foreplay – or afterplay. Be inventive!

I am not against people finding people to date on social media. That’s the way it goes now.

The taste of chocolate is a sensual pleasure in itself, existing in the same world as sex… For myself, I can enjoy the wicked pleasure of chocolate… entirely by myself. Furtiveness makes it better.

Every person has to be respected.

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.

It is a catastrophe, all of this virtual being together. I think there are people who get hooked on the internet. If they need to look at explicitly sexual material to be aroused there is a problem.

Talking from morning to night about sex has helped my skiing, because I talk about movement, about looking good, about taking risks.

We just do not know what is normal.