The sort of public sex aspects of gay male sexuality did not appeal to me. And it wasn't just a matter of being afraid of them or being too nervous to try them. I did try them and they didn't work for me, they didn't feed me spiritually, they didn't leave me gratified.

If you're doing something, if you're following something that is directly at odds with who you are, you've got to slow down and ask yourself why you're following that dream.

I think that the most important reason to come out is your own sanity; that's above everything else. I think that applies whether you're a public figure or not. The closet is a terrible place to be for the person who's in it.

I do believe in the Kinsey scale, I think many of us fall in different places on the scale and I think it's for each one of us to decide where we are on the scale, it's not for someone else to decide for us.

What's become more important to me over time is to not try to sell myself as someone that I'm not, and that begins with coming out of the closet and gradually it's a challenge to expand that into other areas of my life.

I am comfortable calling myself a writer of suspense, or a writer of thrillers; both terms are sort of interchangeable to me. I think that came from a sense of being at conflict with my true nature throughout my youth, and being afraid of discovery, and feeling as if I didn't belong.

I encourage young people to refrain from putting themselves in dangerous situations in the name of validating themselves sexually.