“What is 'camp'? A much misunderstood word, everyone has their own feel for it. Here is mine:Camp is not in rugby football.Camp is not in the Old Testament.Camp is not in St. Paul.Camp is not in Latin lessons, though it might be in Greek.Camp loves colour.Camp loves light.Camp takes pleasure in the surface of things.Camp loves paint as much as it loves paintings.Camp prefers style to the stylish.Camp is pale.Camp is unhealthy.Camp is not English, damn it.But …Camp is not kitsch.Camp is not drag.Camp is not nearly so superficial as it would have you believe.Camp casts out all fear.Camp is strong.Camp is healthy.And, let’s face it …Camp is queer.”

“There is much to love, and that love is what we are left with. When the bombs stop dropping, and the camps fall back to the earth and decay, and we are done killing each other, that is what we must hold. We can never let the world take our memories of love away, and if there are no memories, we must invent love all over again.”

“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love. ”

“So we're getting close to suggesting that camp is both the opposite of cool and a refinement of it. Camp and cool both have an element of not-caring, of disdain for the ordinary. The difference is that cool implies a lack of conscious effort, whereas camp is about putting everything you've got into it. Either you love something too much (much more than it's "worth", so the stereotypical anorak-wearing Doctor Who fan and the Barry Manilow cultist are both manifestations of this, at least to the outside world), or you're given to going over the top. Or you do both at once, in many cases. Both phenomena are examples of people fashioning an identity for themselves, and if you're reading this book then you must know people like that. Cool is not caring, camp is actively defiant.”

“As more kids piled on and the bus started up, she stared out the window at the place where she'd done so much growing up. When she'd first come to camp, she couldn't believe she was setting foot on Camp Lakeview, or any camp grounds at all, for that matter. Now she couldn't believe she was leaving.”

“I have always loved camping, ever since I was eight, and was forcibly stuffed in a trunk and dropped off in the middle of the forest. My dad was a complex man, but I believe he was trying to show me the value of camping.”