Quotes from Philippe Besson

A million questions flash through my mind: How did it begin for him? How and at what age did it reveal itself? How is it that no one can see it on him? Yes, how can it be so undetectable? And then: Is it about suffering? Only suffering? And again: Will I be the first? Or were there others before me? Others who were also secret? And: What does he imagine exactly? I don't ask any of these questions, of course. I follow his lead, accepting the rules of the game. He says: I know a place.

a sense of not belonging is something one inherits.

fundamental truth: that in the end, death is only a matter between you and yourself?

He's surprised: But how do you know it? I say: It's on the way to Santiago de Compostela. He asks if I've never been there. I tell him no, never, but I read about it in a book and remembered it. He makes fun of me, saying: I was sure you were a boy like that, one who knows things just because you read it in a book. He then becomes despondent and adds: But what's worse is that if someone asked both of us, I'm pretty sure you would be able to talk about it way better than I could.

You get used to everything, even the defection of those you thought you were bound to forever.

Si la vie m'était laissé, il se pourrait que je te prie de la partager avec moi.

One of my lifelong regrets is that I was not beautiful, and what is more, that I turned for love to those who could not but reject me.

I remember Buenos Aires, people dancing under a volcano, girls with endless legs and older women waiting for the return of their loved ones, the disappeared, a return that will never happen.

I wonder if it's cold fathers who make the sensitive sons.

here are the lost years won back with words,

Of course I "prefer boys." But I'm not capable of saying this sentence out loud yet. I discovered my orientation very young, at eleven years old. Even then I knew.

I don't know then that one day I won't be seventeen. I don't know that youth doesn't last, that it's only a moment, and then it disappears and by the time you finally realize it, it's too late. It's finished, vanished, lost.

The reunions are always joyous and the good byes bittersweet, everyone regretting they have so little time together. Thomas says that he doesn't know Vilalba very well because they usually just stay at the house for endless conversations, punctuated by laughter and complaints, long lunches and drawn-out dinners. He says that for him Spain is just people in his family who love one another, who eat and drink and cut each other off in conversation until night falls.

He says: Because you are not like all the others, because I don't see anyone but you and you don't even realize it. He adds this phrase, which for me is unforgettable: Because you will leave and we will stay.

I am taken aback by this excess precaution; in another context I would have found it ridiculous. But I understand the fear and panic he carries with him. I know how strong this fear is and also that it can't only be fear of being caught. It's a fear of himself too. A fear of what he is.

And then, he asks me to take him. He says the words, without shame, without ordering me to either. I obey him, though I'm afraid. I know that it can hurt if the other person doesn't know how to do it, that the body can resist.

Ik weet dat dit net is gebeurd, ik ben niet gek, en toch lijkt het me onwaarschijnlijk.

he's smiling, a slight, complicit smile, almost tender. This smile devastated me for a long time after, whenever I happened to look at this photograph. It upsets me even now as I write these lines and contemplate the image, resting on my desk, right next to my keyboard. Because now I know. I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

C'est important : il me regarde d'une certaine manière et n'en déviera pas. En fin de compte, l'amour n'a été possible que parce qu'il m'a non pas tel que j'étais, mais tel que j'allais devenir.

Whereas for him there's a barrier, an impenetrable wall, forbidding him to deviate from what has been predetermined. Whenever he mentions this question of the forbidden I will try in vain to show him that he's wrong.

It was actually Nadine who'd insisted that I come with her, telling me that I wasn't social enough, that real life was not lived in books, that there was nothing wrong with a little lightness, a little carefree partying. She was right. Maybe if I'd listened to her a lot earlier, I wouldn't have missed out on my youth.

While the credits roll he says: That scene with the chain saw was great, wasn't it? I look at him and joke: Yeah, I almost grabbed you at that moment. He smiles back at me and I receive his smile like a gift. There weren't many times Thomas smiled at me like that. It wasn't his way.

I did not understand then that the bac was the end of us.

I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy and that I already know I will never be so happy again.