I get rejections from the New Yorker. When I had to give a little talk to the people graduating from the MBA program at Columbia who were going into writing and filmmaking and everything, I said, "When I tried to think of what to say, the only subject I thought was appropriate for people doing what you're going to do is rejection." That's what it's all about.

[Larry Kramer] said, when it was all about to fall through, "You betrayed me, Calvin." And I said, "I resent that. I was against you from the beginning."

[Calvin Trillin] was very "shoe," which means he was a big jock, a big deal.

I'm sorry to keep focusing on the New Yorker, but everybody who was growing up when Calvin [Trillin] and I were growing up wanted to be published in the New Yorker.

Back in Kansas City, I associated Harvard with sort of gnarly guys who wore capes for effect in a kind of Oscar Wilde scene. Even though I also knew there was such a thing as the Harvard-Yale game, I was still a little surprised that Harvard had a football team. I just assumed if there were such a thing as gay people, that they were nothing like us. Little did I know that probably half the swim team at Yale was gay.

Everyone disappoints [Larry Kramer]. So it's not a problem for him either way.

I think basically what The American People is about is that we've been here from the very beginning, and that has never ever been acknowledged in the history books. John Winthrop wasn't off the boat ten seconds before he passes a law that homosexuals should be hanged. And then he hung 'em, including an attempt to hang his own son when he found out he was gay.