I've chronicled the experience of the mother of a transgender child who got attacked by the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee, and that of a transgender woman who was asked to deliver a sermon at her Montana church and got a standing ovation from her congregation. The idea that Christianity is a blanket term that encompasses both of those attitudes seems ludicrous to me.

I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.

Depressed people cannot lead a revolution because depressed people can barely manage to get out of bed and put on their shoes and socks.

I got into my first serious relationship with a man when I was twenty-three. I had, before that, sort of a typical, sad history of relatively promiscuous sexual encounters with men I didn't know, because I felt that if I were involved with people I did know, other people would know that I was gay, and it was something that I needed to keep so secret.

I love to communicate, and I love music. That's why I always thought not being able to hear would be a tragedy.

Depression is the flaw in love. There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss. And that specter of despair can be the engine of intimacy.

The strengthening of faith, I think, is the ultimate goal of organized religion altogether.