I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.

Even there, [Barack] Obama's generals, his Pentagon, they're telling him what to do. And the force for gay rights is inevitable. And you can say Obama will help us, and maybe he will, but only if we have something on the ground that will make him help us. Frankly, the gay movement on the ground has been one of the great propulsive things that has made politicians do what they do.

My dad was a [Theodor] Roosevelt Democrat.

In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying "I'm sorry," is that there's so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.

The passions and commitments that ignited my activity as a student are the same passions and commitments that I have today.

I breathed the air of deliverance through books, and through books I leapt over the walls of confinement.

My father lived with me the last five years of his life and passed away of Alzheimer's, and at that point he was saying to anyone who would listen, "We all hated the war in Vietnam." Well, it was easy to hate the war in Vietnam 40 years on.