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.

Being right is overrated! If someone is saying that they're right about the future, that's a claim only a fool would make.

I'm drawn to making films that in some way move the social conversation.

For Coca-Cola to take a pro-diversity, pro-equality stance creates a lot of goodwill in the LGBT community.

It's 'When We Rise,' not 'When Gay People Rise.' It's about how everyone benefits when we lift up any one group in this country.

I'm industrious. Ambitious. I'm like the gay Mitt Romney... That's a terrible thing to say.

I never wanted to be a writer initially. It was not my thing, but I was an avid reader.

That's what I learned most about directing on my own - you've got to build a family, a filmmaking family.

You can't keep treating people differently under the law because of their differences. That's not America. I dare say that's not even a good conservative value. We're all supposed to have an equal shot.

My mom was paralyzed from polio at the age of 2, abandoned by her husband, left with a 2-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old, and so, we were raising her as much as she was raising us.

Every single person in this world is a minority in one way or another. It just depends on how you slice the pie.

I have never imagined that I would get married and that I would become a father.

I've been the underdog my whole life.

Win or lose or draw, you always go back and critique your performance and say you could have done things better. Even if I put the guy away in one round, I can go back and say I made a lot of mistakes and need to tighten up. But that's the type of person I am. Improve. Improve. Improve. When I lose I come back stronger than ever.

Everybody has their own path. Everybody peaks at different times.

I'm not fighting just to fight. I'm fighting to be the world champ.

I'm not the same fighter I used to be.

If you move in and out, throw shots and use angles and the guy's feet are planted, you look a lot better.

I try to work on the small things.

I have mouths to feed and I want big fights!

There's always the pressure to win. That never goes away, but being a main event, I want to go out there and put on a great show for the fans and live up to being a main event. That doesn't really stress me out or pressure me anymore. The fight is enough.

Adversity teaches a man a lot about himself.

I feel like I've always been a great fighter but I'm learning the patience part of it and not getting overwhelmed with emotion and adrenaline and going out there and brawling like a maniac.

Those deep, dog fights - I love that. That's why I fight.

I'm not a quitter, man. Just look at my history.

I'm chasing gold. And whatever fight can get me closer to being a world champion, those are the fights that I want.

It's MMA. Anything can happen. Nothing's for sure.

I don't talk bad about people who I roll with.

You can't just be only going to the gym when you sign a fight contract or you'll just be the same fighter every time, just more experienced.

No matter where I came from, I'm a fighter.

Fighting comes down to who you are as a person. With B.J. Penn, he has no problems, not a hard upbringing and came up with money or whatever and he's just a fighter, he enjoys the fight and he refined his skills so I don't think it necessarily has to be a rough upbringing for guys to be great fighters.