When I was growing up, I kept hoping that I wasn't really gay because I wanted to have children. I went through a long, tortured period, so the fact that I have been able to be true to myself and have a family has been the nicest surprise of my adulthood.

Writing 'The Noonday Demon' turned me into a professional depressive, which is a weird thing to be. A class at the university I attended assigns the book and invited me to be a guest lecturer.

We think that fear must be played out in fight, with military intervention, or in flight, via isolationism - but we are not hunted game, and those are not the only options. There is also the possibility of acceptance, with its corollary of understanding and its ultimate manifestation in embracing.

Forging meaning is about changing yourself. Building identity is about changing the world.

If you grow up and your mother or father is a doctor you talk about medicine at the dinner table. In our case we talked about politics at the dinner table.

Ever since boyhood I've made a religion of keeping in shape by regular, conscientious exercise.

There's no destination. The journey is all that there is, and it can be very, very joyful.

The alarming thing in China is the almost total absence of primary care. Even in cities, there are no independent doctors' offices or neighborhood clinics, so people have to go to the hospital for every health care need.