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Edmund White Quotes


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Quotes by Edmund White

Showing 51-60 of 106 Quotes by Edmund White

Early on, after gay liberation, there was an almost Stalinist pressure from gay critics and even gay readers to write about positive role models. We were never supposed to write negative things about gays, or else we were seen as collaborating with the enemy.

~Edmund White

Topics: About After Almost Collaborating Critics Early Else Enemy Even Gay Gays Liberation Models Negative Never Positive Pressure Readers Role Role Models Seen Supposed Things Were Write

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One of the side benefits of staying in the closet is you can have a much bigger career.

~Edmund White

Topics: Benefits Bigger Career Closet Much Side Staying You

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Everyone seems agreed that writing about sex is perilous, partly because it threatens to swamp highly individualised characters in a generic, featureless activity (much like coffee-cup dialogue, during which everyone sounds the same), and partly because it feels... tacky.

~Edmund White

Topics: About Activity Agreed Because Characters Dialogue Everyone Feels Generic Highly Like Much Partly Perilous Same Seems Sex Sounds Swamp Tacky Threatens Which Writing

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Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.

~Edmund White

Topics: About Apply Bad Bad Habit Being Beings Characters Could Fall Fictional Flaws Habit Know Life Meet Moral Novels Often Overly Possibly Readers Real Real Life Standards

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Reading the several thousand pages of Christopher Isherwood's complete journals is an instructive corrective to the prissiness of reading fiction. Isherwood had faults that we'd say were unforgiveable in a novel (he was careful to distance himself from these in his autobiographical fiction).

~Edmund White

Topics: Autobiographical Careful Christopher Complete Distance Faults Fiction Had He Himself His Journals Novel Pages Reading Say Several Thousand Were

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Europeans forget that one-third of the American people have had a personal conversation with Jesus Christ and that the born-again are not just little old ladies in black but also CEOs and provosts of universities and candidates for office.

~Edmund White

Topics: Also American American People Black Born-Again Candidates Ceos Christ Conversation Europeans Forget Had Jesus Jesus Christ Just Ladies Little Office Old One-Third People Personal Universities

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I don't have to get married myself in order to campaign on behalf of gay marriage.

~Edmund White

Topics: Behalf Campaign Gay Gay Marriage Get Get Married Marriage Married Myself Order

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I've always deplored bad heterosexual values that dictate the minute a marriage is over the former partners no longer speak to each other; only straights could be so cruel and inhuman as to reject totally the person with whom they've shared their life for 20 or 30 years.

~Edmund White

Topics: Always Bad Could Cruel Dictate Each Former Heterosexual Inhuman Life Longer Marriage Minute Only Other Over Partners Person Reject Shared Speak Totally Values Whom Years

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America thrives on identity politics, left and right. But France is opposed to the idea. Since the Revolution, the French have enthroned the idea of universalism. All of us must be equal before the law as abstract individuals, and that extends to the arts.

~Edmund White

Topics: Abstract America Arts Before Equal France French Idea Identity Individuals Law Left Must Opposed Politics Revolution Right Since Thrive Us

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Nobody in France would ever say 'He's a Jewish novelist' or 'She's a black novelist,' even though people do write about those subjects. It would look absurd to a French person to go into a bookstore and see a 'Gay Studies' section.

~Edmund White

Topics: About Absurd Black Bookstore Even Ever France French Gay Go He Jewish Look Nobody Novelist People Person Say Section See She Studies Subjects Those Though Would Write

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Novelist

Born: January 13th, 1940

Links

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