In Western culture, there's a dichotomy between the easy narratives of God and the Devil. I now believe in this greater overarching spiritual thing. We are the light and the dark, and have to own the darkness. It's part of us. It's not evil. It's needed. You need to own both of them to be whole. Absorb it, and live it as part of your life.
Kevin SessumsLarry [Kramer] and I often disagree. There was the whole meshuggaas we went through about his donating his papers to Yale, and I disagreed with him on a number of things about that. You wanted a gay center.
Kevin SessumsI'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.
Kevin SessumsMy father always wanted me to be president of the United States, and his fallback position was that I not become a ward of the county. I think my father was okay about my going into journalism, though.
Kevin SessumsI just so desperately wanted to be published in New Yorker, and I'd so desperately try to get something in it. But I'd always get nice letters back telling me that Mr. Shawn [William Shawn, the New Yorker's editor from 1952 to 1987] just didn't like this or didn't like that about what I submitted.
Kevin Sessums