My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

Ethan couldn’t possibly understand it, what Cameron and I meant to each other and how different it was from anything like a romance or a crush.

I wonder how you're supposed to know the exact moment when there's no more hope.

the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something different from what you had, it was up to you to make it happen.

Your greatest creation is your creative life. It's all in your hands. Rejection can't take it away; reviews can't take it away. The life you create for yourself as an artist, may be the only thing that's really yours. Create a life you can center yourself in calmly as you wait for your work to grow.

This was a memory I wanted to keep, whole, and recall again and again. When I was fifty years old I wanted to remember this moment on the porch, holding hands with Cameron while he shared himself with me. I didn’t want it to be something on the fringes of my memory like so many other things about Cameron and myself.

Family or love or romance, whatever it is, is not restricted to perfect people. If it were, it wouldn't exist. All of that comes out in my work in some way.