“I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.”

But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency.

In a free society, a large degree of human activity is none of the government’s business. We should make criminal what’s going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.

And unless you think there is a serious chance you’re going to jail, don’t listen to your lawyer.

When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.

Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.

Ronald Reagan believes in the free market like some people believe in unicorns.

For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.

It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.

Excessive partisanship is the problem. There has never been a democracy in the history of the world in a polity of any size where you didn’t have political parties. Even sometimes over the objections of the people who started it.

I will tell you, I’m a lousy cook, but I think I’m a pretty good judge of a good meal.

Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.

Disruption never helps your cause. … It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.

The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.

I should have voted for the first Iraq war. George Bush did that one very well. I had been skeptical. I was afraid that George Bush was going to treat the first Iraq war the way his son treated the second.

Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.

Part of me looks at the gay movement now and worries that we’re losing our individuality.

A lot of people come up to me all the time and say thank you for helping me be who I am. So my thing wasn’t just about sexuality. It was about anyone who felt different; anyone who felt out of place. Being gay was one part of it.

My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it’s a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That’s a big step.

I’m gay for Jesus, fill me with your grace. Pour your love all over me, but please aim away from my face.

And being gay isn’t so easy, either I’ve always said that if anyone ever thought I was straight they must need glasses – but when I finally came out and said, “Yes, I do sleep with men and I’m gay,” yeah, I lost record sales. There’s no question – big, big time.

A lot of Donna Summer and things that maybe weren’t trendy anymore or weren’t hip in gay clubs but you’d hear them at Taboo.

I’m not gay, and I’m not a transvestite.

If you listen to the debate, [Barack Obama] and [John] McCain said the same thing about gay rights.