“I'd never seen him out front before. It was also the first time I realized that Fred had sex appeal. Fred. Wherever did he get it?”

“The fact that Fred and I were in no way similar - nor were we the best male dancers around never occurred to the public or the journalists who wrote about us…Fred and I got the cream of the publicity and naturally we were compared. And while I personally was proud of the comparison, because there was no-one to touch Fred when it came to "popular" dance, we felt that people, especially film critics at the time, should have made an attempt to differentiate between our two styles. Fred and I both got a bit edgy after our names were mentioned in the same breath. I was the Marlon Brando of dancers, and he the Cary Grant. My approach was completely different from his, and we wanted the world to realise this, and not lump us together like peas in a pod. If there was any resentment on our behalf, it certainly wasn't with each other, but with people who talked about two highly individual dancers as if they were one person. For a start, the sort of wardrobe I wore - blue jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers - Fred wouldn't have been caught dead in. Fred always looked immaculate in rehearsals, I was always in an old shirt. Fred's steps were small, neat, graceful and intimate - mine were ballet-oriented and very athletic. The two of us couldn't have been more different, yet the public insisted on thinking of us as rivals…I persuaded him to put on his dancing shoes again, and replace me in Easter Parade after I'd broken my ankle. If we'd been rivals, I certainly wouldn't have encouraged him to make a comeback.”

“Except for times Fred worked with real professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, it was a twenty five year war.”

“At first I didn't even realize she was pregnant. I kinda gotten used to her throwing up every time we had sex…”

“It was the first time I was ever in love, and I learned a lot. Before that I'd never even thought about killing myself.”

“The whole problem, I suppose, is that any time some piece of communication strikes poor Fred, or any of the remaining Beasts, for that matter, as possibly meaningful—or is it meaningless? It’s been explained to me a dozen times and I still can’t get it right—anyway, his religious convictions say he has to either stop it or—barring that—refuse to be a party to it.”

“He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing. He knew that I'd betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.”

“When I first met him, he did not care if a friend did not fit into his world, because at that time his world had not been born yet.”

“Poseidon held out his arms and gave me a hug. I realized, a little embarrassed, that I'd never actually hugged my dad before. He was warm—like a regular human—and he smelled of a salty beach and fresh sea air.”

“I'd never seen a guy my own age play the piano. It was like sex and musical theatre fused together.”