“And how have I lived? Frankly and openly, though crudely. I have not been afraid of life. I have not shrunk from it. I have taken it for what it was at its own valuation. And I have not been ashamed of it. Just as it was, it was mine.”

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”

“I shall be what I have been, shall live as I have lived.”

“I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from somewhere I have never been, and that I have carried this sin as my sin even though I have never committed it; this sin pursues me all my life, which life is undoubtedly not my own even thought I live it, I suffer from it die of it.”

“I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook,
A real live lover, could have been a book,
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock,
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.
I could be here and now,
I would be, I should be, but how?
I could have been one of these things first.”

“… I feel as though I am shelved. That I have been given the words to the story of my life, but that I have remained largely unread…”

“Take God here / I have to talk to him / I want to tell him / about a life I have lived / and which I haven't understood / what it has been worth living / what has changed / or better / what have I earned?”

“I have a platform and a following of millions of people, many of whom I know have been through exactly what I have. And if I tell my story, as painful and flip floppy and flawed as it is, I know it will mean something to someone, as every time someone speaks openly about sexuality, it saves lives.”

“I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Köln there was never a knight
Had a merrier life than mine.”

“I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived and the scholar who will not share. There have been many wiser men than I, but few have traveled as much road. I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know there is wisdom and that there is hope.”