Witty people came out in autumn; beauties in July.

[...] you'll have to forgive me, darling, I am old-fashioned, I believe in General Motors and the clarity of the gods...

Truly Christ blessed the lepers and the whores, but there is no comfort in the Bible for boys with small winks, and they are the most shunned of all.

While his life was impeccable on the surface, he felt he was behind glass; moving through the world in a separate compartment, touching no one else.

[...] when he said one evening, after they had ruined another lasagne, "When we're fifty, we'll probably be good cooks," Malone was deeply touched; for with those words he had said, "I'll love you till I die."

He felt he had been embraced, taken in beneath these warm covers, not by Frankie, but by the world itself, by God, and he lay there, listening to Frankie's heart beat against his ear, afraid to breathe he was so happy; till Frankie kissed him, and he looked up and saw, in the faint light of the streetlight, the tenderness and gratitude that had flooded Frankie's eyes, and made them glisten and sparkle like the rain outside, as he looked down at Malone with the faint smile of a man who awakens in the depths of the night to find not only is he safe, but loved. Frankie merely smiled at him, but for that look, those eyes, Malone would have given the world.

"Why dangerous?" said his tutee.
"Dangerous because you may lose your heart," he said, standing up. "Or mind. Or reputation. Or contact lenses."

They made love much later on a mattress in the living room, as the cries of children playing in the street echoed around them, and when Malone left he had fallen in love; not with the young man, but the thought of him in the bathtub with his candles reading books of anatomy; and when Malone went to see him the next time, he simply sat with him in the bathroom and did not even ask to make love.

Love is, after all, my darlings, all anticipation and imagination, and when they finally met they would say something perfectly mundane!

He wandered the streets and parks with the deep pleasure of someone who is saying good-bye to a place, which, once it has been relegated to the past, now seems especially touching.

But Malone continued standing there, within the house of flesh, the Temple of Priapus, staring out at that sparkling snowfall. That was it. That was Malone - standing in the crush of voluptuous limbs, enthralled by the cold, lonely, deserted street.