Armistead Maupin quotes:

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.

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

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.

It may interest you to know that my breakup with Terry and this mystery did not happen concurrently in real life. That is a writer's device, which places Gabriel under even greater pressure when the mystery begins to reveal itself.

Being in love is the only transcendent experience.

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. 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.

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.

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

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?

I know that when Terry and I were together, 10 years ago, he did not appreciate it when people would ask him what it is like being partnered with a celebrity. Precisely because it suggested that he had no value.

I consider myself much better adjusted than Gabriel.

Solitude was no reason for sloppiness

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.

I've always believed you can get closer to the truth by pretending not to speak it.

I've always drawn on bits and pieces of my own life.

When I get back from this book tour, I'm planning to learn the internet. Maybe I can hook up in cyberspace.

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.

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.

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

For the most part, I have a very manageable celebrity. People recognize me from time to time, and they usually say very appreciative things. It affords me a great deal of pleasure.

I have always distrusted memoir. I tend to write my memoirs through my fiction. It's easier to get to the truth by not claiming that you are speaking it. Some things can be said in fiction that can never be said in memoir.

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.

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

It took so long to find you...and now I don't want it to change. I want it all set in amber. I want us and nobody else in the most selfish way you can imagine. I can't help it--I'm old-fashioned. I believe marriage is between a man and a man.

Nobody's happy. What's happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on

How could I possibly NOT be disappointed by what I would find? Nothing had ever met my expectation, since nothing could compete with my doctoring imagination, my pathetic compulsion to make the world quanter, funnier, kinder, and more mysterious than it actually was.

I haven't lost faith in human nature and I haven't decided to be less compassionate to strangers.

I've included these little jokes and mysteries in my writing for the amusement of readers.

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.

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.

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 goddamn someone. You have to fake the hell out of it.

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.

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.

There is no fifth destination.

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.

Outing is a nasty word for telling the truth.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

I think a lot of gay people who are not dealing with their homosexuality get into right- wing politics.

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

I tend to prefer the shelter of fiction.