Youth must be the worst time in anybody's life. Everything's happening for the first time, which means that sorrow, then, lasts forever. Later, you can see that there was something very beautiful in it. That's because you ain't got to go through it no more.

I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly.

We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force which can change it.

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.

The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

There is no way of conveying to the corpse the reasons you have made him one--you have the corpse, and you are, thereafter, at themercy of a fact which missed the truth, which means that the corpse has you.

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.