“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.”

“Because the birthday of my lifeIs come, my love is come to me.”

“I was nine minutes late for my last birthday party. And I was nine months on time for my first birthday.”

“Do you need some birthday dick? I once got dick for my birthday—my first birthday, in fact. That’s how they knew I was a boy.”

“It was the first time I had heard the truth of what happened that afternoon said in a voice that was not my own. Hearing what happened from Ann was like the difference between seeing your face in a mirror and seeing it in a photograph.”

“She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.”