ANDREW SULLIVAN

I enjoy being around people who disagree with me; and I enjoy being in non-political contexts and activities.

The good news about me is that my friends and social network is entirely independent of politics.

We've got fuel prices coming down and good travel numbers coming out, so it's not surprising airline stocks are going up.

My own early crusade for same-sex marriage, for example, is now mainstream gay politics. It wasn't when I started.

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

No American should be forced to choose between their spouse and their country.

You know, American citizens, I don't think, ever thought that the right to the pursuit of happiness did not include the right to marry the person you love. But for a whole number of Americans, gay Americans, that happens to be true.

When I first started talking about gay marriage, most people in the gay community looked at me as if I was insane or possibly a fascist reactionary.

I've always been a pretty candid person. I'm not a very secretive person; I'm not a very discreet person. One of my best friends once described me as pathologically indiscreet.

Anything that raises any internal honesty about gay life is inherently suspect.

I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something - there's something wrong with them. They're not really thinking.

Al Gore's problem, in my view, is that he never liked politics. He's actually deeply uncomfortable in it but felt he had to do it because of his father. He's much more comfortable in a private sector role and has, in fact, been much more successful in a private sector role, and I admire him for that.

What gay culture is before it is anything else, before it is a culture of desire or a culture of subversion or a culture of pain, is a culture of friendship.

When I was about eight, I asked my mother if it was true that God knows everything about you. When she answered yes, I said, 'Then there's no hope for me, Mum.'

I can barely remember what I wrote yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.

Well, in the past, the size of government was one of the more fundamental dividing lines between Right and Left. The Right was supposed to represent the small government philosophy - limited spending, low taxes. Obviously, things have shifted.

The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isn't a profession, it's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and you're all set.

If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers.

In many ways, my attachment to human freedom was completely compatible with my right to live freely as a homosexual.

Homosexuality is like the weather. It just is.

The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. It's the ones that become the friendships that last.

There is something about hearing your president affirm your humanity that you don't know what effect it has until you hear it.

The Dixiecrats meet again in New York. Now they're called Republicans.

I purge compulsively. I'm constantly shedding things.

When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses.