Quotes from John Rechy

Didnt I tell you theyd all come?" he whispered to me. "The vicious fairies. And theyre disappointed it's not a wake yet.

The world was revealing its death to me by the process of slow discovery: the slowly gnawing loss of innocence; and I found myself longing for the God in Whom, unquestionably, I had believed as a child. But this world of loneliness and desperation belied Him. The sky was now a black cave where once it had been limitless, stretching into that Heaven of childhood angels and peace.

Our life," he sighed, "is meant to be a series of love affairs—nothing more. And you all know that. And who knows whos just around the corner? . . . Come on," he said, passing gracefully from one awed person to another, "drink up!

No, no! Youre not supposed to care!

Lets have a gay time!

Youre a Very Beautiful Boy," the director tells Skipper. "And in this town thats All that matters.")

Because even before I got there, New York had become a symbol of my liberated self, and I knew that it was in a kind of turbulence that that self must attempt to find itself.

Later on I would think of America as one vast city of night.-John Rechy, City of Night

I discovered the jungle of Central Park—between the 60s and 70s, on the west side. In the afternoons, Sundays especially, a parade of hunters prowled that area—or they would sit or lie on the grass waiting for that day's contact.

Love can fuck up desire, I'll agree to that," I said, and I believed that. If, on the occasions when someone I had sex with remained after orgasm, and an edge of friendship was being suggested to me—as, say, we might lie, though rarely, talking—if, then, at those times, all desire faded.

The money which I got in exchange for sex was a token indication of one-way desire: that I was wanted enough to be paid for, on my own terms.

Gay men should not adopt the sophomoric model of heterosexual dating; gay men should always have sex first.

Just the absence of loneliness. Thats love enough.

I read many books, I saw many, many movies. I watched other lives, only through a window.

And the fierce wind is an echo of angry childhood and of a very scared boy looking out the window—remembering my dead dog outside by the wounded house as the gray Texas dust gradually covered her up—and thinking: It isnt fair! Why cant dogs go to Heaven?

Southern California, which is shaped somewhat like a coffin, is a giant sanatorium with flowers where people come to be cured of life itself in whatever way .... This is the last stop before the sun gives up and sinks into the black, black ocean, and night - usually starless here - comes down.

Maybe I could love you. But I wont. The grinding streets awaited me.

And the next moment the fierce wind comes screaming, whirling the needle-pointed dust, stifling all hope. And you know then that what has not happened will never happen. That hope is an end within itself. And the fierce wind is an echo of angry childhood and of a very scared boy looking out the window—remembering my dead dog outside by the wounded house as the gray Texas dust gradually covered her up—and thinking: It isnt fair! Why cant dogs go to Heaven?

Isnt it possible that wanting to be wanted Ã¢â'¬Â¦ or 'loved' Ã¢â'¬Â¦ could be as much an aspect of what you call 'love' as actually loving back?" I said. "I mean, in choosing someone to 'love' you—to be loved by—while that other person chooses you to 'love'—doesnt one complete the need of the other?

How erotic Texas must be!" she said. I was sure she had meant "exotic," but I followed through: "Maybe, if you find cactus and deserts erotic, sensual.

Memory is too unreliable to be 'truthful'.

Miss Destiny said, "there is a God, and He is one hell of a joker. Just—look—" and she indicates her lovely green satin dress and then waves her hand over the entire room. "Trapped! . . . But one day, in the most lavish drag youve evuh seen—heels! and gown! and beads! and spangled earrings!—Im going to storm heaven and protest! Here I am!!!!! I'll yell—and I'll shake my beads at Him. . . . And God will cringe!

From the street, I looked up into the apartment buildings, into the naked windows of the tiny cubicle-rooms. More haggard faces peering blankly; skinny, maimed bodies of uncaring women in slips; men without shirts. All have the same look: the look of nolonger-questioning, resigned doom. The world on its knees. Ã¢â'¬Â¦

Because somewhere in that plain of childhood time must have been planted the seeds of the restlessness.