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

It was Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Wendell Phillips - these were the people who made abolition real. Now, none of you guys is in favor of slavery, right?

The only people who have never had a problem with me speaking in their venues are independent bookstores and libraries. Universities and humanities councils have canceled me, but never an independent bookstore.

I thought in 1965 that my job was to convince most Americans to be against the war. So I spent summers knocking on doors, handing out literature, trying to talk to people who didn't agree with me, trying to get them to see the war was wrong. And by 1968 a majority of Americans did oppose the war.

Students for a Democratic Society was also affiliated with the civil rights movement everywhere.

If you listen to the debate, [Barack Obama] and [John] McCain said the same thing about gay rights.

It's amazing where the paranoid mind can take you.