I wasn't a [gay] activist, really.

I'm not denying Christ by not being Christian. I'm a theist, which involves expanding on the Christ narrative.

Hollywood needs peripheral people like me. You're not of that world, but you're needed.

I don't write poetry for the New Yorker. My poems appear in the Nation, mostly.

Larry [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.

[Calvin Trilllin] is not writing about things that I can criticize. I can call these other people out for what I think they are not doing. There's a big difference.

Is it easier for you to have straight friends, Larry [Kramer], since you seem so often disappointed in your gay friends who can't live up to what you expect of them as gay people?