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

When one person mentors, two lives are changed.

[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.

When I graduated [from Yale], I went back to Larry [Kramer]. But when I go to Yale reunions, there are still people who call me David.

Calvin [Trillin] was much more of a mover and a shaker. That's all I'm saying. I was a "weenie." That was another term back then.

That's why I tried to kill myself when I was a student [in Yale]. I thought I was the only one there.

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.

I talked to [Larry] Kramer a little bit about it while I was writing 'Remembering Denny' . Denny was one of those people who took a long time to come out.

"Shoe" just meant you were a big jock on campus no matter what field you were in.

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

One thing I learned in sobriety is to stop being judgmental, to always be discerning. When I drive, that will be my bumper sticker.

Isn’t that the fantasy? If I go back in time, knowing what people back then didn’t know, then I can change history! But history made you what you are. And it’s bigger than any one man.

Kindness and pain, joy and suffering are twins in this fallen world.

Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.

Your dreams are closer than you think.

We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us.

There is no influence like the influence of habit.

Constant repetition carries conviction.

The simple fact is that only if I love Jesus more than my wife will I be able to serve her needs ahead of my own.

I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.

did you ever see anybody so disgusting: said lightning to thunder, "never" thunder growled thunder, "lets give him the works