[Lyndon ] Johnson was responding to a black freedom movement that was tearing the country open and he did what he had to do as a conservative politician.

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

Writing a memoir has a particularly excited sense of narcissism.

Art and activism can be symbiotic. They don't have to be, of course; they can also be contradictory.

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.

In a world as out of balance as this world, everyone can find something to do. And the question isn't can you do everything; the question is, can you do anything?

That's what [Abraham] Lincoln said. "The white man will always be above the black man. I don't want them to run for office, or have political rights, or vote. I want them to go back to Africa."