One of the things that's complicated about writing anything is that it's an act of narcissism, and then of course once it sails out into the world, you have to let go of it.

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

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

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

I think I am a radical. I have never deviated from that. By radical, I mean someone trying to go to the root of things.

Every politician - FDR, Lyndon Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama - they're all conservative by nature. They are part of the big thing and they're moving in a very constrained world.

I don't think saying "I was wrong here, I was wrong there" absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.