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Quote by Larry Kramer

“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.”

Quote by Larry Kramer

Author

Larry Kramer is an influential American playwright, born on June 25, 1935. Known for his sharp social commentary and profound character development, Kramer's works primarily focus on the lives and struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. His masterpieces include 'The Normal Heart' and 'The Boys in the Band', which have had a profound impact on the LGBTQ+ rights movement. more

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were gay, just for starters. They didn't have a name for it, but their primary affections and intellectual attractions were all for other men.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“I think Ed Koch is the person most responsible for allowing AIDS to get out of control. It happened here first, on his watch. If he had done what any moral human being should have done in the beginning, and put out alarms, then a lot fewer people would have gotten sick.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“Mr. Do-Nothing Obama will say today, 'Lets think of all the poor dead people' - or 'let's honor all the dead' instead of fighting for the living. He has been really useless in terms of both HIV and gay issues. He is simply not a leader. He may be president, but he is not a leader.”

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