Paul Monette

The problem with secret crushes: in the absence of requital the love turns bitter.

— Paul Monette

“The first thing you see, directly in front of you, is a dim-lit tunnel receding deep under the island. The tunnel is…

— Paul Monette

Go without hate, but not without rage. Heal the world.

— Paul Monette

“How far was that? On March 1 he told us the chest x-ray looked clear, except for a shadow that was probably…

— Paul Monette

“Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slanted yellow light.”

— Paul Monette

Don't let anyone tell you that the truth can't disappear. If I believe in anything, rather than God, is that I am…

— Paul Monette

When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter…

— Paul Monette

“The pain between them made me as envious as their laughter, because it was real and expressible, blood-red with passion, and not…

— Paul Monette

“Organized religion is the school of hate, and never more exultant in its righteous indignation than when it talks about gay and…

— Paul Monette

Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.

— Paul Monette

“You need only to have glimpsed it once to know there's a window out of all this black and sleepless night. Then…

— Paul Monette

As an artist, you reach for the pen that's full of blood.

— Paul Monette

“Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slant of yellow light.”

— Paul Monette

“Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.”

— Paul Monette

The Bible is still the only dirty book I've ever read, at least in its current incarnation as a weapon of the…

— Paul Monette

But the fevers are on me now, the virus mad to ravage my last fifty T cells. It's hard to keep the…

— Paul Monette

“and the Nazis. A real piece of work, old number XII, who wouldn’t intervene even so far as to tell his Polish…

— Paul Monette

The struggle for true openness and intimacy is a lifelong struggle for all of us, gay and straight alike. And besides, a…

— Paul Monette

“There is no God, I'm sure of that. But the more they've sought me out, the more I am convinced that there…

— Paul Monette

“I must’ve gone out for dinner with Al and Bernice, and I must’ve been full of reassurance and interstitial data. All the…

— Paul Monette

“that all there is is love. Pity us not. Los Angeles 29 June 1987”

— Paul Monette

We queers of Revelation hill...died of the greed of power, because we were expendable. If you mean to visit any of us,…

— Paul Monette

“the tenth floor of the medical center from a dozen others. Amateurs still at the system, I expect we appeared like two…

— Paul Monette

“It will be recorded that the dead in the first decade of the calamity died of our indifference.”

— Paul Monette

“a body on the sand. My journal gets very spotty here, with only a single detailed entry”

— Paul Monette