I had been a storyteller by instinct all my life. I was that boring little kid who made the rest of his friends sit around the campfire and listen to his ghost stories. It's been very much a part of my makeup.

When I started writing Tales of the City I was one year away from being a mental illness. It wasn't until 1975 that the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses - and in many states, including the state of North Carolina where I grew up, homosexuality was a crime. An arrestable crime. It still is, in many parts of the world.

I think many writers write because it's a convenient way to explain themselves to themselves. We take the chaos and the turmoil and the bullshit of our lives, and we make it into something that has a harmonious shape and sound.

The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.

There is no fifth destination.

All I know is this: If you and papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it is the light and the joy of my life.

I'm the age now that Rock was when he picked me up, so I can understand how he felt - how his fame limited his freedom. You get kinder as you go along.