"You mean something like ‘truth or dare’? I haven’t played that in a long time.” She didn’t think he would ever get himself entangled in a game like that, but it was addictive, a compromising icebreaker featuring all the strategy of Poker, minus the cards, mixed with a dash of danger from Russian Roulette, without the revolver."

"Some days I wonder how I'll get through a whole lifetime of thinking. A life that's just words, words, words, shuffling around in my head. Was I born that way?"

"Even in the gay spots around town, he could walk in and suddenly realize he was the only person of color in the room. He faced questions in all the eyes he greeted. What’s he doing here? Does he think he’s one of us? How ironic that even here in the nation’s self-proclaimed “gay summer capital” he should feel unwanted, excluded."

"She had not meant to name them, but she could not help herself; and having done so she thought, Let their names be symbols that their lives are worth the keeping. Let them struggle a little the harder, to keep their names."

"I figure this current era of history is the one with the best chance of quality of life for a black, female, disabled, middle-aged, queer person who's most comfortable not fitting in. The odds still aren't great, mind you. But I'll take my chances with the 21st century."

"There is no night porter wandering about in King's. The authorities pay you the compliment, ugly gate-crasher, of treating you as a grown-up. And since we are not grown-up you and I, we will perform our midnight frolics as the inmates burn the midnight oil."

"A human has seven litres of blood. This they had taught him in the army. Seven litres, which, with an arterial cut will vent a fountain two or three metres, and take three to four minutes to bleed out."