In the 1970s in New York everyone slept till noon. - Edmund White

Perhaps I became so vague, so exhilarated with vagueness, precisely in order to forestall a recognition of the final term of the syllogism that begins: If one man loves another he is a homosexual; I love a man...

Many French people were difficult conversationalists. Asking them not only where they were originally from but what they did in life was considered rude — I suppose because many of them did nothing (many Parisians are rentiers, people who live off the rents of their properties) or because they weren’t proud of their jobs, which simultaneously supported and interfered with their intellectual and artistic passions.

What I had instead was the ache of waiting and the fear I wasn’t worthy.