The war between the sexes is the only one in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.

The flagrantly gay Quentin Crisp dealt with homophobic bullying by refusing to bow to its onslaught. His number listed in the phone directory, he responded to derogatory remarks accompanied with a stated intent to kill him by asking, "Would you like to make an appointment?"

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone - but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep.

What I wanted most of all was to use sex as a weapon to allure, subjugate, and, if possible, destroy the personality of others.

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.