I was at Yale from 1953 to 1957, and I tried to commit suicide in my freshman year because I was gay, and I thought I was the only person in the school who was. I was just totally and utterly miserable. Larry Kramer Read Quote
I forgot that San Francisco is not an angry city like New York. Gays have gotten what they wanted there over the years, unlike New York, where we had to fight for everything. Larry Kramer Read Quote
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? Larry Kramer Read Quote
Activism is very seductive, and writing is painful and hard. It’s very scary to have a death threat living over your head. Activism is very sustaining. But I don’t view myself as a political person. I’m just someone who desperately wants to stay alive. Larry Kramer Read Quote
I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn’t there an enormous building in Washington called the ‘National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns’ to lobby for us? Larry Kramer Read Quote
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. Larry Kramer Read Quote
AIDS is a plague – numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health – though no one in authority has the guts to call it one. Larry Kramer Read Quote
I do not think the gay population has been all that rabid for gay marriage. Note that I do not use the words ‘gay community.’ Expunge that expression from your vocabulary. We are not a community. Larry Kramer Read Quote
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. Larry Kramer Read Quote
Most of the Michelle Bachmanns and Mitt Romneys who say such terrible things about us actually is a positive force, because it allows sensible people to realize how stupid and vile their beliefs are. Larry Kramer Read Quote
