I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.

Now that our sexual experience is increasingly available to us as a subject for contemplation, we have to extend our language to express our new consciousness until we have as many words for sexuality as the Eskimo has for snow, that pervasive, beautiful, and mortal climate in which we all live.

Love is the terrible secret people are suspected of unless they're married, then one always suspects they don't.

If the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.

Knowledge is a collective enterprise. Without it understanding is impossible. Ignorance is too often a murderous vulnerability.

I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God.

I believe only in art and failure.