In terms of the nature of the continuation of the Cold War, which has gone on so long between Cuba and the United States, I applaud the president for aggressively trying to end it and I hope we will have not only full diplomatic relations, but that the trade embargo will end.
By the mid-noughties, I found that I was no longer the only openly gay person in every setting. At one point, a couple of Moscow magazine publishers even got the idea that they should actively headhunt gay and lesbian staff.
Here's the deal: the extraordinary becomes ordinary really quickly. One minute, everything is new and amazing, the next it's expected.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange.
Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.
What's so sad is when we're younger, if you have a bad parent, that is normal to you and that's what you think of as healthy.
There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone around him.
When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It's great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic.
I have carried a revolver; lots of us do, but they are the most innocent things in the world.
Things that would shock us years ago are like nothing now.
We tolerate without rebuke the vices with which we have grown familiar.
I've just gone through so much in my life that pulling my top up just doesn't seem like that big a deal.
God love Neil Patrick Harris - how great is that. People grew up with him; they go, 'Oh it's him, it's that little boy and he just happens to be gay. How great for him!' The more of those kind of examples that happen, the better it's going to be.
Today one can dare anything, and, furthermore, nobody is surprised.
I think normalization is a good thing.
Israel's master strategy needs to be moving toward a regional arrangement that will enable a full normalization of relations with the Arab states and the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
It's never a good sign when extremism becomes the norm.
There are no conditions to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.
My father was a public figure all my life, and so the presidency was an extension of that. I guess you get used to it, though you can stand back occasionally and think, 'Boy, this is really weird!'
It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace.
Lying about things large and small has become so accepted by so many that they even lie about lying.
Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, its victory is assured.
The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.
I think it's so important to have visibility and to break down stereotypes and stigmas and everything that people are so attached to.
