I longed for literary celebrity even as I saw with my own eyes how little happiness it brought.

When I saw corruption, I was forced to find truth on my own. I couldn't swallow the hypocrisy.

In 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'Jack Holmes and His Friend,' my idea was to take someone totally different from my real self and, at the same time, to assign to him my own life trajectory.

While writing 'City Boy,' I relied mainly on my own memories. In particular, I was able to describe the effect of gay liberation on an individual life (mine) as events paralleled my own growing self-acceptance; in this case, the political truly was the personal.

At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer.

Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.