Quotes from Dustin Lance Black

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

There has been this resurgence in anti-LGBT language in the U.K. and the U.S., and the rest of the world. In the U.S. we've heard it with Trump's rise. Here, I've heard language borrowed from the most conservative anti-gay voices in the U.S. used by some gay and lesbian people against trans people.

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.

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

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.

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 hope we build a son who's strong enough to stand up for other people. And if Donald Trump is out there teaching folks how to build walls, we're hoping to instil in our son the ability to know how to take them down.

I turned in a script that meant a lot to me and an executive at Warner Bros said he was disappointed in me. I took a hit of confidence and stepped away from film-making for some time.

We love and adore our surrogate, we speak to her and her family constantly, I'm sure our son will speak to her for the rest of his life as well.

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.

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

I watched Sean Penn, you know, bring Harvey Milk to life. I was on the set every day.

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.

I think for too many decades, the politicians have driven a wedge between the gay and lesbian communities and the religious communities for their own benefit, and I think it's time to start to broach those divides.

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.

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

I had a lot of success for many years, and the critics had been so kind. Sometimes it's good to get cut down to size a little bit.

When I got the deal to do 'J. Edgar,' which was really the brainchild of Brian Grazer, 'Milk' hadn't come out yet. We had just completed principal photography, and it was still basically this little film where we just really hoped someone would see it.

The things that I'm interested in directing are fiction, because then you're not married to a particular reality.

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

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

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 am hopeful that there are three or four Harvey Milks. It would be nice to have one in California and one in New York and one in Texas and Oklahoma-it would be fantastic. Maybe even one in Salt Lake City. I would like that.

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.