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Edmund White Quotes


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Quotes by Edmund White

Showing 11-20 of 106 Quotes by Edmund White

I lived through the Fifties in the Midwest when everything that was happening - the repression of homosexuality, for instance, the demonization of the Left, the giggly, soporific ordinariness of adolescence, the stone-deafness to the social injustice all around us - seemed not only unobjectionable but also nonexistent.

~Edmund White

Topics: Adolescence Also Around Everything Fifties Happening Homosexuality Injustice Instance Left Lived Midwest Only Repression Seemed Social Social Injustice Through Us

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The one thing that is sort of sneered at and not really believed is bisexuality. Any bisexual man is just seen as a closeted gay man. That shows how narrow-minded people are. The other thing that's totally neglected and which nobody approves of is celibacy. People again assume that you're just repressing something.

~Edmund White

Topics: Again Any Approve Assume Believed Bisexual Bisexuality Celibacy Gay How Just Man Narrow-Minded Neglected Nobody One Thing Other People Really Seen Shows Something Sort The One Thing Thing Totally Which You

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I do probably come down a little hard on a group of people I call the 'blue chip gays.' I mean people who have managed to become very, very famous and are still very famous partly through staying in the closet, like Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Susan Sontag, Harold Brodkey and others.

~Edmund White

Topics: Become Blue Call Chip Closet Come Down Famous Gays Group Hard Harold Like Little Mean Mean People Others Partly People Staying Still Susan Through Very Who

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If I had been straight, I would have been an entirely different person. I would never have turned toward writing with a burning desire to confess, to understand, to justify myself in the eyes of others... I wouldn't have been impelled to live in New York and choose the hard poverty of bohemia over the soft comfort of the business world.

~Edmund White

Topics: Been Bohemia Burning Burning Desire Business Business World Choose Comfort Confess Desire Different Different Person Entirely Eyes Had Hard Impelled Justify Live Myself Never New New York Others Over Person Poverty Soft Straight Toward Turned Understand World Would Writing York

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First, I was opposed to gay marriage because it seemed like one more way that gays were wanting to assimilate. When I realized the Christian right was so opposed to it, as well as tyrannical governments in Africa and Russia, I thought, 'It must be a good thing to fight for.'

~Edmund White

Topics: Africa Assimilate Because Christian Fight First Gay Gay Marriage Gays Good Good Thing Governments Like Marriage More Must Opposed Realized Right Russia Seemed Thing Thought Tyrannical Wanting Way Well Were A Good Thing

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The natural enmity between leaver and left is like the absolute, immediate and always shifting hostility between driver and pedestrian.

~Edmund White

Topics: Absolute Always Between Driver Enmity Hostility Immediate Left Like Natural Pedestrian Shifting

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I can think of no other writer who so thoroughly embodies the Jamesian spirit as Alison Lurie. Like him she can excavate all the possibilities of a theme. Like his, her books seem long, unbroken threads, seamless progressions of effects.

~Edmund White

Topics: Books Effects Embodies Her Him His Like Long Other Possibilities Seamless Seem She Spirit Theme Think Thoroughly Threads Unbroken Who Writer I Can

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Just like Barack Obama, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and now I am a reluctant groom.

~Edmund White

Topics: Am Barack Barack Obama Evolved Gay Gay Marriage Groom Just Like Marriage Now Obama Reluctant Views I Am

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Looking back, I can see that the women I loved, at least early on, were status symbols. I suppose, in that sense, I was my mother's true disciple. She'd taught me that a good man, though elusive, could transform one's whole life once he was caught.

~Edmund White

Topics: Back Caught Could Disciple Early Elusive Good Good Man He Least Life Looking Looking Back Loved Man Me Mother Once See Sense She Status Suppose Symbols Taught Though Transform True Were Whole Women I Can A Good Man

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The great triumph of the Sixties was to dramatize just how arbitrary and constructed the seeming normality of the Fifties had been. We rose up from our maple-wood twin beds and fell onto the great squishy, heated water bed of the Sixties.

~Edmund White

Topics: Arbitrary Bed Beds Been Constructed Fell Fifties Great Had Heated How Just Normality Onto Our Rose Seeming Sixties Triumph Twin Up Water

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Novelist

Born: January 13th, 1940

Links

Find Edmund White on Amazon

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