I look at the rates of suicide among gay teens. They are so, so high for suicide attempts and for completed suicides.

When I remember how unhappy I was in adolescence - about the fact that, though I wasn't really using the term to or for myself, I knew that I was gay - I think, "Oh, if someone then could have shown me just an hour in the life that I have now, I would have made it through all of that misery and despair just fine." The pain lay in thinking that I had a desolate future.

I have always believed in trying to be a good person and giving to the world, and treating others in a just, kind, merciful way.

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

Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it.

I grew up feeling that to be gay was a tragedy. I didn't grow up thinking that it was morally wrong, but I grew up thinking that it would make me marginal, prevent me from having children, and quite possibly prevent me from having a meaningful long relationship. It seemed that this condition would leave me with a vastly reduced life.

We live in the right time, even if it doesn't always feel like it.