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.

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.

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

I think a lot of gay people who are not dealing with their homosexuality get into right- wing politics.

But it's amazing how many people think that gay men should slink off into the shadows when it comes to having friendships with children.

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.

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.