David Mixner

“As a spiritual person, nature for me has always been a healing place. Going back all the way to my childhood on the farm, the fields and forests were places of adventure and self-discovery. Animals were companions and friends, and the world moved at a slower, more rational pace than the bustling cities where I'd resided my adult life.”

“When she was running for election in 2006, I went to Missouri to campaign for Senator Claire McCaskill. She impressed the hell out of me and I fell in love with her mother Betty Anne who is a pistol!”

“At 60, the mind was sharp but the body complained. The legs were willing to make all the right moves but the muscles gave out too early.”

“The lesson is the same as it always has been to the HIV/AIDS community: embrace and celebrate the progress while not letting up the pressure until there is a cure.”

“Politics was put in front of me. I do politics because it's the vehicle for change and because I happen to be good at it... I had this sort of calm fearlessness, that some would call foolishness.”

“Change comes with both fear and some pain. Those two ingredients create mistrust, misunderstanding and misinformation. Such is the process of democracy.”

“Pharmaceutical companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new HIV/AIDS treatments not out of altruism but because they can make up those research costs in sales.”

“Treating HIV/AIDS is a lifelong commitment that demands strict adherence to drug protocols, consistent care, and a trusting relationship with health care providers.”

“Sam Nunn might bring us Georgia and maybe even another Southern state but, in my opinion, at an unacceptable cost to our principles and to the concept of change that has stirred millions to rise and work for Barack Obama. Sam Nunn would be a disaster as a running mate and a total anathema to millions of Americans.”

“All of my peers died of AIDS, and I have no one to celebrate my past or my journey, or to help me pass down stories to the next generation. We lost an entire generation of storytellers with HIV.”

“HIV/AIDs patients depend on highly trained, specialized physicians. Each and every patient has a unique combination of retrovirals they depend on to keep them alive.”

“I'd come to the country to do my Thoreau bit, so I needed an office that looked out onto the woods for inspiration. I converted one of the bedrooms into my workspace and through its windows watched the wildlife appear each morning with the sunrise. Many were the days I would sit in wonder, coffee in hand, for hours.”

“For many people with HIV, finding the right doctor is the most important decision they'll make.”

“President Clinton not only benefits by gay and lesbian votes, but he benefits by showing the nation that he is a strong leader who implements his beliefs, who stands firm by those who he believes are being treated unfairly, and I think people respect that kind of leadership in the country.”

“I love books, I love art, I'm a fanatic nature and wildlife person. People assume I'm a political animal, power hungry, wanting to run for office. And anyone who knows me knows that none of that's true.”

“I had old bunk beds that my dad got from Seabrook Farms. They were first used by German prisoners during World War II, who were sent to work the farms during the war. The metal beds with their thin mattresses could easily be used as a jungle gym and I loved them.”

“I often laugh and say I should go down to the Department of the Interior and register as an endangered species. I'm a gay man over 60 and I'm alive.”

“Those who are trying to remain healthy with HIV/AIDS are in the most vulnerable period of their lives; that's no time to leave them without access to care.”

“Where gays and lesbians are the best organized and most concentrated in numbers are states that President Clinton must carry in order to be reelected in 1996. Among the states are California, New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois.”

“Passed down from generation to generation, storytelling was an art in my family.”