How to Survive a Plague Quotes

“[Michael] Callen and (...) one of his last interviews, with the documentary crew that had followed him to Ohio. “I realize some people could look at my life and say ‘Oh, it was so sad. He died of AIDS and isn’t that tragic.’ But what I want to come through is that even after all the pain and all the torture, and even having AIDS, I can honestly say that being gay is the greatest gift I was ever given. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
― David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS

“Turning to the pharmaceutical industry for assistance proved no more profitable. Throughout that fall and winter, Broder traveled across the country meeting with industry giants and start-ups alike, but AIDS did not interest them. They talked about it in terms of money, not human suffering. They couldn’t justify the necessary R&D cost for a disease affecting so few people, they told Broder. To them, there simply wasn’t a market worth chasing.”
― David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS

“Out of the closet, I had found my natural place on the androgyny quadrant of the gender matrix. I wore my hair long and hung a pair of chandelier earrings on my ears. My sexual orientation, which had always been self-evident, in the words of Quentin Crisp, was also self-claimed.”
― David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS