Armistead Maupin famous quotes

If you want to know who the oppressed minorities in America are, simply look at who gets their own shelf in the bookstore. A black shelf, a women's shelf, and a gay shelf.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Gay #America #Black

Being in love is the only transcendent experience.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Being In Love #Love Is

But I will say that the drugs are much more ferocious then they used to be. There are people wrecking their lives with addiction, which seems much more severe.
-- Armistead Maupin

#People #Addiction #Drug

The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Honesty #Gay #Numbers

I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Mistake #People #Loving Someone

I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Thinking #Intuition #Storytelling

In her opinion, the parrots were annoying arrogant. You could buy the most beautiful one in town, she observed, but that won't make it love you. You could feed it, care for it and exclaim over its loveliness, but there was nothing to guarantee that it would stay home with you. There had to be a lesson in there somewhere.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Beautiful #Breakup #Love You

My mother once told me that if a married couple puts a penny in a pot for every time they make love in the first year, and takes a penny out every time after that, they'll never get all the pennies out of the pot.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Marriage #Mother #Couple

I’m pissed off at my Republican family back in North Carolina, several of whom came to my wedding, but who went right back and are voting for homophobes and acting like it doesn’t matter. It does matter and it’s time for the queers in this country to start saying so to their families. I think we’ve all cut them too much slack for far too long.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Country #Cutting #Thinking

Nobody's happy. What's happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on." The older woman poured herself a glass of sangria. "Screw that," she said quietly. "What?" "Screw that. Wash your mouth out. Who taught you that half-assed existential drivel?
-- Armistead Maupin

#Glasses #Light #Half

Mona knocked at the wrong time. “Uh…yeah…wait a minute, Mona -- ” Mona shouted through the door. “Room service, gentlemen. Just pull the covers up.” Michael grinned at Jon. “My roommate. Brace yourself.” Seconds later, Mona burst through the doorway with a tray of coffee and croissants. “Hi! I’m Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys!
-- Armistead Maupin

#Coffee #Boys #Doors

If I had my way...We would lock ourselves away from that madness out there...
-- Armistead Maupin

#Locks #Way #Madness

There is no fifth destination.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Destination #Fifth

But it's amazing how many people think that gay men should slink off into the shadows when it comes to having friendships with children.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Children #Gay #Men

I've always drawn on bits and pieces of my own life
-- Armistead Maupin

#Pieces #Bits And Pieces

The film itself involves a New York City radio storyteller, Gabriel Noone, who strikes up a friendship with one of his fans, an abused 14-year-old teenager who is suffering from AIDS, who does not have much longer to live.
-- Armistead Maupin

#New York #Teenager #Years

I tend to prefer the shelter of fiction.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Fiction #Shelter #Recycling

I consider myself much better adjusted than Gabriel.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Aggravation #Gabriel

I'm the age now that Rock was when he picked me up, so I can understand how he felt - how his fame limited his freedom. You get kinder as you go along.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Rocks #Age #Fame

The hell of it is, I know the answer. The answer is that you never, ever, rely on another person for your peace of mind. If you do, you're screwed but good. Not right away, maybe, but sooner or later. You have to -- I don't know --you have to learn to live with yourself. You have to learn to turn back your own sheets and set a table for one without feeling pathetic. You have to be strong and confident and pleased with yourself and never give the slightest impression that you can't hack it without that certain ***** someone. You have to fake the hell out of it.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Strong #Giving #Fake

Oh, Mona, we're all damned fools! Some of us just have more fun with it than others. Loosen up, dear! Don't be so afraid to cry . . . or laugh, for that matter. Laugh all you want and cry all you want and whistle at pretty men in the street and to hell with anybody who thinks you're a damned fool!
-- Armistead Maupin

#Fun #Men #Thinking

Like I've always said, love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Valentines Day #Fun #Love Is Blind

I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Gay #Mama #Christianity

I felt very close to God.... My friends say that's because I was always on my knees.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Knees

Solitude was no reason for sloppiness
-- Armistead Maupin

#Solitude #Sloppiness #Reason

Don't listen when they scoff That you are too old and I am young, For I am old enough to know better And you are young enough not to care.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Care #Enough #Young

I'm not sure I even need a lover, male or female. Sometimes I think I'd settle for five good friends.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Good Friend #Thinking #Males

But I'm acutely aware that the possibility of fraud is even more prevalent in today's world because of the Internet and cell phones and the opportunity for instant communication with strangers.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Communication #Opportunity #Phones

Taureans are stubborn as hell. They never want to tell you what sign they are.... But underneath that tough Taurus hide beats the heart of a hopeless romantic.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Heart #Hopeless Romantic #Stubborn

Outing is a nasty word for telling the truth.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Gay #Nasty #Telling The Truth

When I started writing Tales of the City I was one year away from being a mental illness. It wasn't until 1975 that the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses - and in many states, including the state of North Carolina where I grew up, homosexuality was a crime. An arrestable crime. It still is, in many parts of the world.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Writing #Years #Cities

All I know is this: If you and papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it is the light and the joy of my life.
-- Armistead Maupin

#Heart #Light #Joy