We're all going to go crazy, living this epidemic [AIDS] every minute, while the rest of the world goes on out there, all around us, as if nothing is happening, going on with their own lives and not knowing what it's like, what we're going through. We're living through war, but where they're living it's peacetime, and we're all in the same country.

I came from Yale, where you get an extracurricular degree in self-importance because you went there. When AIDS happened, I was treated like an outcast. And I don't like that feeling.

The point about L-O-V-E is that we hate the word. Because we vulgarize it. It should be taboo, forbidden from utterance for many years, till we've found a new and a better idea.

There's no question that the gay movement would not be as far along as it is without AIDS. But how can there be any other issue in the face of death, possible extinction?

Gay life in 1970 was very bleak, compartmentalized. You didn't take it to work. You had to really lead a double life. There were bars, but you sort of snuck in and snuck out. Activism and gay pride simply didn't exist. I don't even think the word 'gay' was in existence.

Writers who are activists are very rarely taken seriously as artists.

I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we're better than other people. I really do. I think we're smarter and more talented and more aware. I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things. And I try very hard to remember all this.