The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

Of course the success of A Boy's Own Story took me utterly off guard.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

There was something stubborn in me that didn't want to lose weight to attract a man. If the right man came along, he'd be able to see my virtues magically. Once he kissed me, the frog would turn into a prince. I had become a trick question, a heavy disguise, but behind the disobliging exterior was the welcoming child I would always be. Of course, what I'd forgotten was that he was not Parsifal and I was not the Grail; the medievalism of my imagination was not sufficiently up-to-date to recognize that the lover was a shopper and I a product.

San Francisco is where gay fantasies come true, and the problem the city presents is whether, after all, we wanted these particular dreams to be fulfilled--or would we have preferred others? Did we know what price these dreams would exact? Did we anticipate the ways in which, vivid and continuous, they would unsuit us for the business of daily life? Or should our notion of daily life itself be transformed?

Paris... is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.

Psychoanalysis feeds on intensity, as though life were all flame and no ash.