I think outsiders sometimes produce the best fictional perspectives on reality because they're set apart from it, so they have a unique view from the border.

The good thing about New Orleans is that, overall, it's an accepting place. It's accepting of eccentricity, it's accepting of excess, it's accepting of color, in the sense of culture, not necessarily in the sense of race.

I think we need to always mimic reality in our fiction. I think that we can stir things up and reveal a truth beneath the surface in that way as well.

I'm not a literary writer who is wedded to notions of realism and fiction. I believe that you can write anything if you can feel it convincingly.

It never occurred to me to write anything that didn't include gay characters in it.

I think for gay people to see gay people living honestly about everything they do is really a contribution.

If you aren't following your bliss, there is a discrepancy in your psychology that needs to be healed, it needs to be mended.