51 Quotes by Paul Monette

We were doing the best we could with what we had left, and more and more it was like Diogenes tossing away the tin cup because he could drink with his hands. It turns out there is no end to learning what you can do without.

Tears are part of the leeway of the common areas of a hospital, since so many have to do their crying away from the patient's bed. You don't care who sees you cry in the lobby: it was port of entry for all the sorrows, and one gave up all one's previous citizenship at the border.

Lust and the English make no sense to me.

exactly half the phenomenal world is gone

And thus I wonder about so many gay men I’ve met since, pillars of the community, out to everyone else but Mom, who still refer to their lovers as something between a roommate and a valet. Just who is being protected here, and who thinks queer is wrong?

When you finally come out, there’s a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.

Poetry served as a sort of intellectual wallpaper to brighten up the closet.

That would be my theme, I thought: once I came out, the world was all windows.

I liked being adrift in symbols, beauty for beauty’s sake.