Quotes from Richard Stevenson

He was the only man I knew who could roll his eyes over the telephone.

Bowman's idea of "entirely cooperative" was a man who brought along a certified stenographer to take down his own confession.

After nineteen years, he still needed explanations from me. If being willing to speak at length into an unresponsive void isn't one of the cornerstones of a rich relationship and enduring love, what is?

Ned, what's wrong with your face? I don't think you've been drying thoroughly between the folds and interstices.

Yes, bottle up your negative emotions in a neurotically unhealthy way. For my sake. Just off and on until spring. Your springtime emotions I like a lot." I took a long swig of beer. "I don't know, Timothy. I have to tell you, this is a bolt out of the blue. Your proposition is not something I ever dreamed I'd be faced with when we began sharing hearth and home and Vaseline jar. I'm going to have to give this one a lot of thought.

Mother of God!" "That was my thought, or the Presbyterian equivalent thereof.

Until I met Timmy I'd always thought coffee was a mineral that occurred in nature as tiny crystals and was mined like coal.

In the age of AIDS I had been making it a practice to imagine a skull and crossbones on the forehead of every possibly available comely gay man I found myself alone with, but Slonski's kept fading in, fading out.

Men are usually trying to get into my bed, not out of it.

Opera has always been my chief emotional release. Along with sex, of course.

Is your new toothbrush in the bathroom?" "You didn't pick one up? God, you know I hate it when you use my toothbrush." "I can put your cock in my mouth, but not your toothbrush." "I don't brush my teeth with my cock.

You'll like LA a little better once we're outside. Think of New Jersey with palm trees.

You have to be able to roll your eyes up into your skull, down the inside of the back of your head, up your jawbone, and into the sockets again. That's how the writers wrote the character, and the producers have too much integrity to alter the conception.

I loathe safe sex. Safe sex is to erotic communion what the Salisbury steak in a restaurant on the New Jersey Turnpike is to food. I do it because it's what there is, but I don't want to think about it any more that I have to.

It's no big deal for us to be out of each other's company for a couple of days. We've done it before. We're friends and lovers, not Siamese twins.

No need to worry. Everything's under control." "It is?" "Not my control, but somebody's.

You're a gay detective? I don't think I've ever met one before." "Of course you have," McWhirter put in emphatically. "You just didn't know they were gay. That's the whole point.

Something crossed her mind and, suddenly alert, she gave me the fish-eye. "I suppose you're one of Dorothy's gay-lib friends. Is that it? March up and down the street, make a commotion, get us all into this trouble?" "I guess I am," I said. "But I don't think I'll march today, Mrs. Stout. Not in this weather.

He touched your face? Kee-rist, Donald." He undulated awkwardly in his seat belt. "Do you want to describe the circumstances, lover, or should I just draw my own sensational conclusions and stick it all in your 'Seven Since June' file? Crimenee. You're just—incredible.

He looked over at me now, his eyes wet. "Will you come and lay down with me first?" "Well, gee, Lyle . . . gee. Actually, I think Miss Manners would advise against it. I mean, with my lover waiting down in the car and all. I think you have a good bit to learn about timing—about the social graces. I'm pretty sure we'd both feel very, very bad afterwards. Also, these days I'm a bit overextended in that department.

Has Timmy called?" "Timmy?" "Timothy J. Callahan. My great and good friend." "No. You think I'm running a dating service around here, Strachey? Doing social work among the perverts?" "I just asked if he'd phoned, Ned. Anyway, I'd never accuse the Albany Police Department of social work. Or even, in a good many cases, police work.

Whenever the subject of household chores came up—had come up—I'd say, "You wash and clean, and I'll keep the windmill oiled and the hogs fed." A cushy deal I had. Had had.

The philosopher king said, "Everything stinks sometimes. Some of it can't be explained.

In the end, everybody gay in Albany knows everybody gay in Albany. Eventually you always end up in the bed you started out in. I mean, this is the Hudson Valley, Newell, not West Hollywood. You can do it.