Edmund White Quotes

I came out to myself when I was about 15 or 16, and to my parents when I was 18. When you come out to your parents, that's when it's properly official.

Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays. I don't want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

I write about my life, choosing incidents that I think will be, for one reason or another, significant to people. Often because they may have experienced the same things.

Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.

My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name.

What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I am straight.

I really didn't talk about my sexuality until I wrote my autobiography.

In many ways, my decision to come out changed the course not only of my personal life but of my professional one as well.

Everyone's journey as a gay man or woman is different; it's personal.

Coming out as a gay man, it was very much about finding my own identity and dealing with labeling.

I didn't realize how much me hiding my sexuality also meant that I hid a lot of just my identity as a person.

I've wondered what my sexuality might be, but I've never wondered whether it was acceptable or not. Anyway, who really cares whether I'm gay or straight?

I remember just calling myself gay was a big step for me, and I remember being in the bathroom brushing my teeth, testing out to myself in the mirror, saying, 'I am gay,' and seeing if the world was going to stop or if the ceiling would fall in on me.

Too many memoirs focus on childhoods and it's a bit turgid.

When we're growing up and being teenagers, oftentimes you try so hard to define yourself. You try to create an image of yourself because you don't really know who you are yet. And that can be kind of limiting because you forget that there are actually so many different sides of identity. And it's important to recognize that everyone is completely different.

I attempt to be who I am and it's fun. At the same time, growing up doing what I'm doing can be a little crazy.

I never thought I would write an autobiography, probably because my first novel, Go Now, is really all drawn from my life, even though it's more about the psychology going on.

We can run away from where we are, but not from what we are.

I think part of growing up is not actually finding a fixed idea of who you are, but rather being like, "Oh, wait. I'm different all the time. I'm going to change every second and grow and be fluid." And that's okay.

We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up.

That's always been like a fascination to me - watching my family, three sisters and a brother and all growing up basically in the same situation and each one being so totally different and going on to completely different areas and directions. But for me to go into psychoanalysis really steadily, would be putting too much energy into trying to figure out why I am the way I am... Basically this is how I am and it's alright and I don't want to know why I'm this way.

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

One of the goals of life is to try and be in touch with one's most personal themes-the values, the ideas, styles, colors that are the touchstones of one's own individual life, its real texture and substance.

Accept who you are. Unless you're a serial killer.

I think being gay is a blessing, and it's something I am thankful for every single day.