I believe we really became friends [with Larry Kramer] when we bonded at our fifteenth class reunion in 1972.

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.

If the only hammer you are given is the Internet, it's not surprising that every possible social and political problem is presented as an online nail.

If you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.

Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality.

It's great to win, but it's also great fun just to be in the thick of any truly well and hard fought contest against opponents you respect, whatever the outcome.

I have never, in 50 years, ever missed a deadline [as a journalist].

It is better to underpromise and overdeliver than vice versa. For this one need not break the law of the land.

When I had dyslexia, they didn't diagnose it as that. It was frustrating and embarrassing. I could tell you a lot of horror stories about what you feel like on the inside.

It's not what happened but how it is told.

I'm not really married to the craft of jazz - I'm married to me, and my style, and whatever I produce.

It's important just to be yourself. And probably stay out of trouble.