“I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum.”

“I like living in one room and have never known what people do with the room they are not in.”

“The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call “the trouble with you.” Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.”

“The very purpose of existence it to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think of us.”

“My outlook was so limited that I assumed that all deviates were openly despised and rejected. Their grief and their fear drew my melancholy nature strongly. At first I only wanted to wallow in their misery, but, as time went by, I longed to reach its very essence. Finally I desired to represent it. By this process I managed to shift homosexuality from being a burden to being a cause. The weight lifted and some of the guilt evaporated.”

“It's been agony but I couldn't have done it any other way.”

“The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.”