Larry [Kramer] had already experienced so much loss by then from the AIDS epidemic. But I don't think it changed anything between us.

When one person mentors, two lives are changed.

[Calvin Trilllin] is not writing about things that I can criticize. I can call these other people out for what I think they are not doing. There's a big difference.

When I graduated [from Yale], I went back to Larry [Kramer]. But when I go to Yale reunions, there are still people who call me David.

Calvin [Trillin] was much more of a mover and a shaker. That's all I'm saying. I was a "weenie." That was another term back then.

That's why I tried to kill myself when I was a student [in Yale]. I thought I was the only one there.

I'm sorry to keep focusing on the New Yorker, but everybody who was growing up when Calvin [Trillin] and I were growing up wanted to be published in the New Yorker.

I talked to [Larry] Kramer a little bit about it while I was writing 'Remembering Denny' . Denny was one of those people who took a long time to come out.

"Shoe" just meant you were a big jock on campus no matter what field you were in.

[Calvin Trillin] was very "shoe," which means he was a big jock, a big deal.

One thing I learned in sobriety is to stop being judgmental, to always be discerning. When I drive, that will be my bumper sticker.

As we become the light, the light is lifted in every room that we enter.

The ultimate foundation of spirituality is the recognition that there can't be such a thing as a purposeful life in a purposeless universe.

Believe in your sacred self: strength of your being.

When the time has come, every leaf turns to face the sun!

Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.

Privacy with medical information is a fallacy. If everyone's information is out there, it's part of the collective.

Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read?

English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable EnglishTheatre.

I've never really been the type of person who worries much about what people think of me.

You don't need the right facts if you have the right inflection.