In America everyone called the merest acquaintance a ‘friend’ – Guy had taken up the habit. It made him feel better about not having any real friends.

— Edmund White

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

— Edmund White

In the case of my book, I don't think it's really the coming-out gay novel that everyone really needed, even though it was received as such. The boy is too creepy, he betrays his teacher, the only adult man with whom he's enjoyed a sexual experience, etc.

— Edmund White

In the past, when gays were very flamboyant as drag queens or as leather queens or whatever, that just amused people. And most of the people that come and watch the gay Halloween parade, where all those excesses are on display, those are straight families, and they think it's funny. But what people don't think is so funny is when two middle-aged lawyers who are married to each other move in next door to you and your wife, and they have adopted a Korean girl, and they want to send her to school with your children, and they want to socialize with you and share a drink over the backyard fence. That creeps people out, especially Christians. So, I don't think gay marriage is a conservative issue. I think it's a radical issue.

— Edmund White

It was a grungy, dangerous, bankrupt city without normal services most of the time. The garbage piled up and stank during long strikes of the sanitation workers. A major blackout led to days and days of looting. We gay guys wore whistles around our necks so we could summon help from other gay men when we were attacked on the streets by gangs living in the projects between Greenwich Village and the West Side leather bars... The upside was that the city was inexpensive…

— Edmund White

I've always deplored bad heterosexual values that dictate the minute a marriage is over the former partners no longer speak to each other only straights could be so cruel and inhuman as to reject totally the person with whom they've shared their life for 20 or 30 years.

— Edmund White

I was lucky to live in New York when it was dangerous and edgy and cheap enough to play host to young, penniless artists. That was the era of "coffee shops" as they were defined in New York—cheap restaurants open round the clock where you could eat for less than it would cost to cook at home. That was the era of ripped jeans and dirty T-shirts, when the kind of people who are impressed by material signs of success were not the people you wanted to know.

— Edmund White

Just like Barack Obama, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and now I am a reluctant groom.

— Edmund White

Key West is the place where your sickly houseplant back in New York grows to 10 ft. It's also the place where an 8-ft. cactus, the century plant, produces a huge yellow flower every great once in a while, like a robot proffering a bouquet. After the plant flowers, it dies.

— Edmund White

Older guys have too much emotional baggage. They’ve already lived their lives.

— Edmund White