Nobody’s happy. What’s happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on

I know I can’t tell you what it’s like to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.

How could I possibly NOT be disappointed by what I would find? Nothing had ever met my expectation, since nothing could compete with my doctoring imagination, my pathetic compulsion to make the world quanter, funnier,...

I couldn’t write—or wouldn’t write, at any rate—unable to face the grueling self-scrutiny that fiction demands

It took so long to find you…and now I don’t want it to change. I want it all set in amber. I want us and nobody else in the most selfish way you can imagine....

Oh, Mona, we’re all damned fools! Some of us just have more fun with it than others. Loosen up, dear! Don’t be so afraid to cry . . . or laugh, for that matter. Laugh...

I don’t see myself very clearly.Then look at the people who love you…Look into their eyes and see what they’re seeing; that’s all you need to know yourself.

Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory: some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth.

I felt very close to God…. My friends say that’s because I was always on my knees.

The hell of it is, I know the answer. The answer is that you never, ever, rely on another person for your peace of mind. If you do, you’re screwed but good. Not right away,...