Top 10 Quotes by Paul Monette

The struggle for true openness and intimacy is a lifelong struggle for all of us, gay and straight alike. And besides, a difficult life brings you to the core of yourself, where you learn what justice is and how it has

The struggle for true openness and intimacy is a lifelong struggle for all of us, gay and straight alike. And besides, a difficult life brings you to the core of yourself, where you learn what justice is and how it has to be fought for.

Paul Monette

Struggle, Gay, Justice

We queers of Revelation hill...died of the greed of power, because we were expendable. If you mean to visit any of us, it had better be to make you strong to fight that power. Take your languor and easy tears somewhere else. Above all, don't pretty us up. Tell yourself: None of this ever had to happen. And then go make it stop, with whatever breath you have left. Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.

Paul Monette

Strong, Grief, Mean

Don't let anyone tell you that the truth can't disappear. If I believe in anything, rather than God, is that I am part of something that goes all the way back to Antigone, and that whatever speaks the truth of our hearts can only make us stronger. Can only give us the power to counter the hate and bigotry and heal this addled world. Just remember: You are not alone.

Paul Monette

Hate, Believe, Heart

Paul Monette (2014). “Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise”, p.91, Open Road Media

Go without hate, but not without rage. Heal the world.

Paul Monette

Hate, World, Rage

Paul Monette (2014). “No Witnesses: Poems”, p.126, Open Road Media

But the fevers are on me now, the virus mad to ravage my last fifty T cells. It's hard to keep the memory at full dazzle, with so much loss to mock it. Roger gone, Craig gone, Cesar gone, Stevie gone. And this feeling that I'm the last one left, in a world where only the ghosts still laugh. But at least they're the ghosts of full-grown men, proof that all of us got that far, free of the traps and the lies. And from that moment on the brink of summer's end, no one would ever tell me again that men like me couldn't love.

Paul Monette

Love, Summer, Memories

As an artist, you reach for the pen that's full of blood.

Paul Monette

Artist, Blood, Pens

When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.

Paul Monette

Hurt, Pain, Matter

Paul Monette (2014). “Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story”, p.8, Open Road Media

Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.

Paul Monette

Hurt, Self Esteem, Oxygen

Paul Monette (2014). “Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story”, p.99, Open Road Media

The Bible is still the only dirty book I've ever read, at least in its current incarnation as a weapon of the homophobes. Bible scholarship keeps trying to catch up, proving that all the hatred of gay is just stupid translation, though the snake-oil preachers don't want to hear it.

Paul Monette

Stupid, Dirty, Book

Paul Monette (2017). “Reflections: The World of Paul Monette”, p.33, Open Road Media