Larry [Kramer] had already experienced so much loss by then from the AIDS epidemic. But I don't think it changed anything between us.

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.

I never appear in any of your work, come to think of it, Calvin [Trillin]. And I look.

I don't think everybody's gay. But I think a lot more people are than the world knows about.

I haven't had sex in two and a half years. A guy I met in San Francisco gave me a sympathy blow job. It didn't really work. I said, "You're just doing this 'cause you feel sorry for me." We stopped in the middle.

I find myself applying the addict's impulse to how I cruise. I don't look at the ass. If I see a hot guy walking towards me I look at his arm, and if he has a vein I fantasize about shooting up with him.

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.