“There is an enormous pressure placed on gay novelists because they are the only spokespeople. The novelist's first obligation is to be true to his own vision, not to be some sort of common denominator or public relations man to all gay people.”

“I believe that only poetry counts… A great novelist is first of all a great poet.”

“The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them.”

“With all of our differences, we [members of the audience] all have one thing in common, we’re all gay. Now there are people out there [in audience] going “Do they think we’re gay because we’re here? Do we look gay? I told you this would happen. We’re not going to understand a word of this.” Seriously, though, if you're here you're probably gay. I mean, you have tendencies, you've thought about it. Now there are people [in audience] going “I have thought about it. Does that mean I'm gay? I'm not gay. Is that how they get us?””

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”

“The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”

“I was pleased because he is the first American rapper to say something positive about gay people. I met his mum, she's lovely.”

“At some point, the novelist has to leap head first into the pool of imagination in order to more freely explore the truth.”

“The butt is not a magical place that only gay people can visit, like a leather bar or the Liberace Museum.”

“There are many reasons why novelists write but they all have one thing in common a need to create an alternative world.”