A Quote by Edmund White
As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together.
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As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together
You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there are two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple, right?
Jesus offered a single incentive to follow himto summarize his selling point: 'Follow me, and you might be happy-or you might not. Follow me, and you might be empowered-or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends-or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers-or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off-or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.'
I was enamored of detectives as a teenager. I liked what they did - piecing things together, thinking about situations. But to get there? Eight to ten years in a patrol car? I didn't have that in me. I didn't want to tell people what to do.
My feet might fail me, my heart might ail me,
The synagogues of Satan might accuse or jail me,
Strip, crown, nail me, brimstone hail me...
They might defeat the flesh but they could never ever kill me.
They might feel the music but could never ever feel me.
I went to my local Sure Start centre, and they put me on a parenting course. I learned things that might seem simple - that it was important to hug and love your child, and read to them. This might seem obvious, but it wasn't to me at the time.
For me, before I go on stage, it all depends. Might be a girl, might be an edible, might be a verse, might be somebody mixing something in my drink without me knowing - hopefully that won't happen tonight.
What if all I'd ever known was how it had been for the past three years - me being an unwanted outsider in my own family? I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might still be letting my parents control me because I was hoping desperately that I would be good enough, make them proud, so that some day they would really love me.
I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.
So many have come to me that I might serve them, leaving me no time to think of myself. However, I assure you that I do feel deep down within me, God be praised.
The one thing I'm terrified of trying to write about is sex. I mean my God, my wife might read it or my daughter might read it or my son might read it, so no, I've never really written about eroticism at all.
Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'?
It would be a wonderful experience to stand there in those enchanted surroundings and hear Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan read from their noble works. And it might be that they would like to hear me read some of my things. No, it could never be; they would not care for me. They would not know me, they would not understand me, and they would say they had an engagement. But if I could only be there, and walk about and look, and listen, I should be satisfied and not make a noise. My life is fading to its close, and someday I shall know.
I realized that once I graduated from college, there might be a period of time where people might typecast me or be more limiting, and I might not be able to play a crazy character. For me, it was important to do that at least in school.
It is the large aggregate of small things perpetually occurring that robs me of all my time. The expense of learning to read might have been spared in my education, for I never read.
I read incessantly, searching for the things that might move me.
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