He thought to himself, I’ll never be this perfect again, an idea that made him sad.

— Edmund White

He was a good boy and ‘projected’ goodness – which later would be the downfall of many a person.

— Edmund White

He was taking Kevin’s cherry! The words made him harder and made him feel privileged, masterful, married. He thought how many men would pay unlimited amounts to have this inaugurating experience with this boy. He didn’t want to feel like a middle-aged pedophile, he didn’t even want to think all this would make a good porn film. Furthermore, he wanted every thrust, every second, to be laden with tenderness, a salute from him to Kevin, a deep recognition. Furthermore, he wanted Kevin to like what was being done to him, to push back for another joyous millimeter of penetration. Furthermore, he didn’t want him to label it Guy’s First Fuck or Kevin’s First Time. Furthermore, he didn’t want the idea and the label to crowd out the sensation or to sharpen it; he wanted it to be pure sex, dramatized.

— Edmund White

I can remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s how many men with AIDS I saw everywhere in Key West. There were hospices and medical supply stores geared to people with AIDS. It seemed that every sick man who could afford it had headed for the warmth and the tranquility and the gay-friendliness of the island.

— Edmund White

I don't have to get married myself in order to campaign on behalf of gay marriage.

— Edmund White

I do probably come down a little hard on a group of people I call the 'blue chip gays.' I mean people who have managed to become very, very famous and are still very famous partly through staying in the closet, like Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Susan Sontag, Harold Broke and others.

— Edmund White

If a writer has the desire to communicate by writing and be heard, then he necessarily cares about seeing it in print. I suppose it's the difference between masturbation and making love—the real writer wants to touch another person.

— Edmund White

If bigots oppose gay marriage so vehemently, it must be because marriage is a defining institution for them; gays will never be fully accepted until they can marry and adopt, like anyone else.

— Edmund White

I'm not such a fan of imagination. If you're alive to details, they oftentimes suggest a richer or deeper imaginative line than you would have imagined.

— Edmund White

I'm sorry," Billy says, "but I felt it was too organized. I like ellipses and teeny jottings and spontaneous poems and particularly all those devices like long lists of melancholy things.

— Edmund White