These rejections hurt me terribly because I felt it was my life that was being rejected.
Edmund WhiteAt certain crucial moments - an emergency or an opportunity - one must act first and think later.
Edmund WhiteParis... is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.
Edmund WhiteThe scorn directed against drags is especially virulent; they have become the outcasts of gay life, the "queers" of homosexuality.In fact, they are classic scapegoats. Our old fears about our sissiness, still with us though masked by the new macho fascism, are now located, isolated, quarantined through our persecution of the transvestite.
Edmund WhiteFor most Northerners, Texas is the home of real men. The cowboys, the rednecks, the outspoken self-made right-wing millionaires strike us as either the best or worst examples of American manliness.... The ideal is not an illusion nor is it contemptible, no matter what damage it may have done. Many people who scorn it in conversation want to submit to it in bed. Those who believe machismo reeks of violence alone choose to forget it once stood for honor as well.
Edmund White