Take up something that you know will never bring you any returns except pleasure-in other words, allow yourself to live the way brilliant eighteenth century courtesans lived. Don't be afraid of having a decorative life, even if all the decorations come from you.

Learn the absolute pleasure of kindness.

If you've been taught to keep every part of you to yourself, don't expect people to come knocking on your door to run their hands over the choice parts-either for your pleasure or theirs.

Ageism is the racism of the gay world. We really believe that age-and all of our fears that it carries-will "rub off" on us, the way that racists once believed blackness would.

There are certain restaurants where you should photograph the food rather than eat it. These are great places to bring a narcissistic boyfriend before you break up.

Try to dwell on the people you'd like to love, instead of all the people you do loathe.

Oscar Wilde said that the gods punish us in two ways: first, they don't give us what we want, then, they do. He forgot the third way: we finally see the cost of getting it.