Edmund White Quotes

American novelist and LGBT essayist (1940–2025)

Edmund White (born January 13, 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, and an essayist on literary and social topics. Much of his writing is on the theme of same-sex love. Probably his best-known books are The Joy of Gay Sex (1977) (written with Charles Silverstein) and his trio of autobiographic novels, A Boy's Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997).

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Alternative Names: Edmund Valentine White III

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Perhaps we'd understood each other too well to be attracted to one another. There were no occlusions in communication, those breaks in understanding that awaken desire.

I’m not sure what readers want.

They kept flipping back and forth, but it wasn’t clear which was the more exquisitely pleasurable pain, to penetrate or to be penetrated.