“If I could take all my parts with me when I go somewhere / and not have to say to one of them, ‘No, you stay home tonight, you won’t be welcome’/ because I’m going to an all-white party where I can be gay but not Black / Or I’m going to a Black poetry reading, and half the poets are anti-homosexual / or thousands of situations where something of what I am cannot come with me / The day all the different parts of me can come along / we would have what I would call / a revolution” IfsI CanDifferentHomeReadingBlackWhitePartyHalfSituationPoetRevolutionGayWelcomeIf I CouldTonightBlack PeopleHomosexualityHomosexualGay PrideLesbianismAnti GayAnti DiscriminationPoetry Reading Author:Pat Parker
“I feel very discouraged with the state of gay and lesbian publishing because I don't feel like we're really welcome in the mainstream and then you get ghettoized and put on some lesbian book club reading list where you don't want to be either.” WantFeelsBookStatesReadingGayClubsListsWelcomeMainstreamPublishingDiscouragedBook Club Author:Ali Liebegott
“I'm sitting in the bus station, minding my own business, reading 'Ta-Da!' magazine; a magazine by and for gay magicians, but that's a different story.” DifferentStoriesHumorFunnyReadingMy OwnGaySittingMagazinesStationsBusMagicianOwn BusinessMinding My Own Business Author:Dave Attell
“Being gay, the last time I looked, had nothing to do with reading a balance book, fixing a broken bone or changing a spark plug.” BookLastsReadingBrokenBalanceGayBonesSparksLast TimeFixingPlugsBeing GayBroken Bone Author:William J. Clinton
“I think camp is a really fascinating thing, and it's hard to define and hard to apply consciously. It's almost something you take from material that's already existed in the world, a reading of the world. But I think it speaks of a long tradition of gay reading of the world, before gays were allowed to be visible.” ThinkingWorldLongHardReadingSpeakMaterialsGayTraditionVisibleFascinatingCamps Author:Todd Haynes
“Reading about feminism when I was a teenager and seeing it as a young woman, I realized that feminism really hadn't dealt with sexuality; it really hadn't dealt with transgender or gay women.” ReadingFeminismGaySexualityI RealizedTeenagerYoung WomenTransgender Author:Lorna Simpson
“In America, and no doubt elsewhere, we have such a tendency toward the segregation of cultural products. This is a black book, this is a gay book, this is an Asian book. It can be counterproductive both to the literary enterprise and to people's reading, because it can set up barriers. Readers may think, "Oh, I'm a straight man from Atlanta and I'm white, so I won't enjoy that book because it's by a gay black woman in Brooklyn." They're encouraged to think that, in a way, because of the categorization in the media.” ThinkingMenBookReadingEnjoyBlackDoubtGayEnterpriseBarriersElsewhereBlack WomenSegregation Author:Ayana Mathis
“There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.” IfsBookSelfLightReadingMeditationGayApproachGardenLaborFlamesThrownJealousCandleMidnightAbstractionBeamNoonTeaseHovering Book:The Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia Source: The Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia