"I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF."

"Because sometimes you just have to dance like a madman in the Self-Help section of your local bookstore."

"So what else can I tell you?" I asked. "I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me."She triangled her fingers under her chin. "Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?""Am I a...?""Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter."I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't."No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry.""Not even a little drip every now and then?""I'm trying hard to see how this is germane.""I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?""Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze.""What adjective do you feel the most longing for?"That was easy. "I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful.""Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?""I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money."The old woman nodded."Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?""All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me.""Are you a museumgoer?""Is the pope a churchgoer?""When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?""That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina."

"rolf! what? are you really rolling on the floor laughing? well, please stay down there for a sec while I KICK YOUR ASS."

"Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right."

"We pencil-sketch our previous life so we can contrast it to the technicolor of the moment."

"Some days are like this. And the only way to get through them is to remember that they are only one day, and that every day ends."

"I'm told there's no going back. So I'm choosing forward."

"But I think we both knew, even then, that what we had was something even more rare, and even more meaningful. I was going to be his friend, and was going to show him possibilities. And he, in turn, would become someone I could trust more than myself."

"Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah"

"You don't know me. You know one me, just like I know one you. And you can't know every me, and I can't know every you."

"Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek and curse? No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it because if you can make yourself happy in the rain, then you're doing pretty alright in life."

"Love doesn’t have to be on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn’t have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn’t have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third day.It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirt.It just has to be."

"he is both the source of my happiness and the one i want to share it with."

"You know what’s a great metaphor for love? Sleeping beauty. Because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up.— Tiny Cooper"

"What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations—all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In you heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are now just arriving at the place you were always meant to be."

"There has to be a moment at the beginning where you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself. If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it—you’re done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lovers’ face."

"The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations."

"It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love."

"Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not."

"The way you're singing in your sleepThe way you look before you leapThe strange illusions that you keepYou don't knowBut I'm noticingThe way your touch turns into arcsThe way you slide into the darkThe beating of my open heartYou don't knowBut I'm noticing"

"It doesn't have to be on Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn't have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn't have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third date.It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirit.It just has to be."