I don't buy the whole mythology of the sixties. I think I'm an intergenerational person.

I wasn't part of John Kennedy's vision of the world, or Lyndon Johnson's. I thought of them as anti-Communist imperial monsters.

All that means to me is that people who have a vision of a better world have a responsibility to open their eyes, to pay attention, to act on what the moment demands, and to be humble about that action.

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.

Something about the fact that an African American had, given the long sad history of our country, now become President - that was exhilarating.

[The whole first year at university] was a great time for me and great time of awakening.

I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.