Page 28
Fred persisted: “All I want is someone who reads books,
loves his work, and me, too, of course, and who doesn’t take
drugs, and isn’t on unemployment.”

Page 50–51
Laverne nodded and sighed. Yes, sex and love were
different items when he wanted them in one, and yes,
having so much sex made having love impossible, and yes,
sadism was only a way to keep people away from us and
masochism only a way to clutch them close, and yes, we are
sadists with some guys and masochists with other guys and
sometimes both with both, and yes, we’re all out of the
closet but we’re still in the ghetto and all I see is guys
hurting each other and themselves. But how to get out! And
yes, the world is giving us a bad name and we’re giving us a
bad name and one of us has got to stop and it’s not going to
be the world. But even knowing all of this…where am I? And
how to say all this to anyone, when no one is listening, no
one wants to hear, not even his two best friends, whom he
sensed weren’t listening to each other, oh what good were
words, words didn’t help me and Dinky, what good were
words when acts were all that counted?