I do try to deliver a solid first draft, meaning it's my tenth or twentieth draft and then I call it 'first' and hand it in, much to the chagrin of the studio sometimes when they look at the contract and go, 'You've passed your deadline.'

I like the gray movies. I don't know if audiences always... it makes them work a little harder. And they have to work hard in 'Hoover.'

We need to maybe think a little less about the science of building walls and that waste of time and energy and start to understand what is love.

When we walked out of that hospital, we had a birth certificate with our names on it that said: 'Father one and father two, Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black.' And we knew our son was not only ours in our hearts but also legally and protected that way.

We've got the same problems any other gay couple and any other straight couple have. But it's 90 percent great. And that's better than most, I think. That's me and Tom.

There was a criticism of 'Milk' that I found truth in, which was that it was focused on gay white men.

My problem is always the number of hours in a day, not the number of things I want to do.

It's really difficult for me to sit and watch anything that I do because I always think about what's there, and what there could be to make it even better.

As a Southerner and as a Mormon you approach life in this aspirational way: 'I will rise above my station.'

I think of the biopics I've written as exploring a more grown-up side of myself, through other characters' lives.

If you go to Paris, try to speak French. If you go to the South, try to speak Southern. Southern isn't stupid. Southern is narrative; Southern is family.

The octogenarians who have pictures of Hillary Clinton under their toilet-bowl covers - they've completely accepted me.

How amazing is it that when a young gay or lesbian person has their first crush, no matter where they live in the country, they can imagine that all the way to marriage? When I first experienced a crush, in Texas, there was maybe a second of butterflies that were then dammed in by the fear of what that meant.

Our brothers and sisters in the trans community, they showed up to every one of our marriage marches when it wasn't necessarily what they needed. So we have to be there for them, use our lessons learned in the marriage fight - how to win when it's difficult, how to change minds that are difficult to change.

My mom would watch me giving speeches on TV and she'd call and say, 'I don't know who this son is.'

Have I always agreed with my Southern, military, Mormon family? Absolutely not. Have we always figured out how to get along? Yes! At the point at which politics supersedes the family and community, we've got a real problem.

I'd say I'm not sure about Christianity, but I sure do like their Christ and the lessons about turning the other cheek, about forgiveness, of yourself and others.

Too many of my heroes have been cut down, but do I want security guards? No. I've been offered them in the past. But the more you present yourself as someone afraid of being attacked, the more people see you as someone to attack.

Do I think J. Edgar Hoover was gay? Yes. Do I think he cross-dressed? No.

Anyone who says a movie about history is a historical document is crazy.

I'm always interested in getting to know people, and that means vilified people as much as those celebrated. You find out that heroes aren't always so heroic, and villains have some bit of humanity in them.

Directing was liberating and intimidating. It's something I've always wanted to do.

I have no respect for someone who lies about their sexuality. At the very least say 'no comment', just keep your personal life personal. If you're going to closet yourself, that sends a negative message.

I've never encountered homophobia in casting from the studios or networks - not once, not ever. Where you encounter it is with the agents and the managers, they're the ones who have an outdated notion of the price an actor might pay if it's discovered that they're LGBTQ.

I'm my mother's son, so when it comes to altruism and understanding how to do things to benefit a person's life... the women in my life have been much better than the men.

What's beautiful about the journey of surrogacy is that relationship you build with your surrogate, when it's done in places with good law. These aren't women you stop speaking to once your child is born, this is someone who's part of your family.

The real power of any movement is how we work together with other social justice movements.

Through my political work in D.C., and having done 'Milk' I got to know a lot of gay octogenarians. They are lovely and they like to tell their stories, and I like hearing them.

I think that our view of love and family informs our work, the way we empathize with people.

To be gay means you are drawn to the same sex. You can be gay and abstinent. But it's a part of who you are, an identity, not an act.

Just like my mom, when things get bad, I get quiet. The worse they get, the more silent I become.

My mom had grown up in the South. Louisiana and Georgia. She had been deeply religious. Baptist, then Mormon. She had worked for the U.S. military. She had voted for Ronald Reagan and Bush Senior.

When I was in my twenties, I would always read my horoscope.

People are always going to disagree politically, because we all come at the law from a different perspective with different needs.

I tend to read 'The New York Times' and 'The Washington Post' online, and I go to the website for the BBC. I am a junkie when it comes to the news.

Having a son has made it all the more important for me to stay in close contact with my family in Texas and Arkansas, whom I know full well voted for Trump. Though I didn't, and have deep problems with this administration and many of them don't. But I'm not going to let that cut the tie from my son to his own history and family.

Hold onto power and you lose your moral compass.

Whenever you write script without a director, you put in things that point toward a style in which the story will be told, a subjective style.

There's a difference between fame and fame for fame's sake.

Children are raised by single parents all the time. Those children - I'd like to claim myself as one, I was raised by a single mother who raised me incredibly well.

For people who have fertility issues - and certainly gay men have fertility issues - there's several options for having a child and surrogacy was one of them.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that this is somehow a stranger who is carrying your child. And this is absolutely not true. Your surrogate becomes one of your best friends and a member of your family.

I was about 15 years old when I moved to the Bay area.

I was very lucky to hear the story of Harvey Milk, it was life-saving for me. I wanted to share it in case it helped others, but the story of one gay man isn't going to do it.

I say to my pupils, 'You can pitch me any thing you've got, but tell me why you're the only person who can write it in the world. Keep digging.'

I wrote 'Milk' for me. I wrote it for the younger version of me that had no clue that there are people who'd ever fought for my rights.

I am sick and tired of the myopia in the gay and lesbian movement. It'll doom the movement.

You're either Mormon or Southern Baptist in my family. They're incredibly conservative and I love my family.

Gay and lesbian people want to love and be loved. Some of us want to get married. Some want to have and build families. We want our kids to have their lives be a little bit better than what we've had.

I think people in the U.K. best know me as the guy who will take their picture when they run into Tom Daley. But I'm also his husband and the dad to our child.