I've always deplored bad heterosexual values that dictate the minute a marriage is over the former partners no longer speak to each other; only straights could be so cruel and inhuman as to reject totally the person with whom they've shared their life for 20 or 30 years. Edmund White badcrueldeplore share on social
I was never an assimilationist. I always thought gays had some special mission. Edmund White assimilationistgaymission Change image and share on social
I'm not such a fan of imagination. If you're alive to details, they oftentimes suggest a richer or deeper imaginative line than you would have imagined. Edmund White alivedeepdetail Change image and share on social
In Paris, AIDS was dismissed as an American phobia until French people started dying; then everyone said, 'Well, you have to die some way or another.' If Americans were hysterical and pragmatic, the French were fatalistic: depressed but determined to keep the party going. Edmund White aidamericandepress share on social
If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire. Edmund White admitamericacontemporary Change image and share on social
I don't have to get married myself in order to campaign on behalf of gay marriage. Edmund White behalfcampaigngay Change image and share on social
I was too prissy, too refined, too abstemious, too French to be a good American writer. Edmund White abstemiousamericanfrench Change image and share on social
I was working for Time-Life Books from 1962 to 1970, as a staff writer, and after that, I was a journalist. Eventually, I became an editor at 'The Saturday Review' and 'Horizon.' Edmund White bookeditoreventually Change image and share on social
America thrives on identity politics, left and right. But France is opposed to the idea. Since the Revolution, the French have enthroned the idea of universalism. All of us must be equal before the law as abstract individuals, and that extends to the arts. Edmund White abstractamericaart share on social
Paris can be like the land of the Lotus-Eaters. You can't leave. Edmund White eaterlandleave Change image and share on social