The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long. The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

We should open our eyes, see what's in front of us, and act.

When someone who's always been in your life is gone, it's a stunning adjustment of your own identity.

[Barack Obama] was running for Senate and he's saying, I'm not for gay marriage because I'm a Christian. Jump off a bridge! I mean what the hell are you talking about? You know, I mean, what's he doing now? He's evolving. Evolving? Well, evolve for Christ's sake! And this is a guy - the whole gay community, and the whole environmental community and all these other people said, he's our guy.

When I was arrested opposing the war in Vietnam in 1965, as I said about 20 or 30% of people were opposed to the war. By 1968, more than half of Americans were opposed to the war. If you pull in Europeans, Canadians, people from around the Third World, the war was vastly unpopular. But even half of Americans by 1968 opposed the war.

My dad was a [Theodor] Roosevelt Democrat.

I don't know why there's not more activism today. I do think that your generation is twenty times smarter than our generation ever was, but the problem with being smart like you guys is that it can lead you really easily to being cynical, and cynicism is actually a pacifying attitude.