“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.”

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

“What I wanted most of all was to use sex as a weapon to allure, subjugate, and, if possible, destroy the personality of others.”

“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.”

“I was from birth an object of mild ridicule because of my movements - especially the perpetual flutter of my hands - and my voice. Like the voices of a number of homosexuals, this is an insinuating blend of eagerness and caution in which even such words as "hello" and "goodbye" seem not so much uttered as divulged. But these natural outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual disgrace were not enough. People could say that I was ignorant of them or was trying without success to hide them. I wanted it to be known that I was not ashamed and therefore had to display symptoms that could not be thought to be accidental.”

“There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.”

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