Цитаты из книг — Bill Konigsberg

“I don’t know. I still don’t feel like I’m gay,” I said. “What a thing to say to a guy after sex!” “No, really.” “Maybe you’re bi?” “I feel like I’m more, like, gay-for-Rafe.” He put his hand on his heart. “Sincerely flattered to be a sexual orientation now. Thank you.”

I was too tired to explain to her that I wasn’t coming out as gay, or even bi. Unless she was telling me that there were generations upon generations of talented gay men who were otherwise straight until they met her son, none of this was particularly meaningful to me.

I think it’s okay to just say who you are without it being final or something. I mean, none of us are finished products. We change. We keep changing. We won’t be finished products ’til the day we die.

I felt a certain desire to jump and twist too, like my father would, like Toby might. All those people who weren’t constricted in their movements the way I was by my brain. And just as I was about to say the hell with it and join in the fun, I stopped. My hands half in the air over my head, half protecting my face as if…

“Well, you know, the way your parents described her, she really didn’t sound like someone I could see you dating.” That made me think about what kind of girl I would date if I really did date girls, and I enjoyed the silence. That was the thing with me and Ben; we shared the best silences.

“We’re a pretty tolerant place,” Steve said, an edge to his voice. “Ah, interesting word. Tolerant. What does tolerant mean?” “It means we tolerate,” Steve said, flat. “We accept people.” “Actually, tolerance and acceptance are different. To tolerate seems to mean that there is something negative to tolerate, doesn’t it?…

“But if we don’t march in parades, people don’t see us,” Mickey said. He was wearing a paisley shirt and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail. “What do you mean?” Jeff said. “People aren’t going to stop seeing gays because they don’t march in some stupid parade. Straight people don’t march in a parade.” “Well, they…

There are so many different kinds of relationships out there, sweetie. The thing that makes one okay and another not is whether it comes from a place of love. Nothing that comes from love could ever be wrong.

Neither of us said anything about anything when we woke up that morning (well, when he woke up and when I pretended to), or when we finished packing, or when we got in the cab. It was like it was just our sleeping arrangement. Then I wondered if that was what this was, like a Brokeback Mountain thing. We’d sleep in the…

When you hurt someone you care about, it’s like a part of you dies inside. If you can’t talk about it, the death goes unnoticed.

As I opened the car door and stepped back into the chilly night, I was thinking that maybe the key to life is to have goldfish memories. So you can’t remember the time a friend hurt you. So you can give second and third and even fourth chances. To yourself too. Because sometimes it takes multiple chances to get things…

“Anyway, I’m giving up sex,” Toby said. “I’ve got other things on my brain.” I thought back to when he’d come to my room to subliminalize me; he’d said he needed to talk. I wondered what was up. “Isn’t it more like sex is giving you up?” Albie asked. “You don’t have a boyfriend, Toby. You haven’t abandoned sex; it’s…

“It’s Sunday,” he said. I’d been asleep for twenty-four hours. “Whoa. That’s substantial.” “Forget sub. That’s fully stantial,” he said.

“I’m tired of you being mad at me too. For the record, I was never mad at you.” “Well, why would you be?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. He shrugged. “Can we just have a truce?” he asked. I took a deep breath. My brain suddenly didn’t feel tight anymore. “I feel like we already have a truce,” I said. “I’ve placed my…

It’s hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they’re not in it anymore. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can’t feel it anymore.

“Did I see you at Eldora this past weekend?” I said I was there. She looked surprised and said, “I didn’t know gay guys liked skiing.” Claire Olivia looked up from her incessant texting and gave me a moon-eyed look. I ignored it and nodded at Jasmin. “We really do,” I said. “It’s a little-known fact. You can tell who is…

“What do you want?” Ben asked me one night, as we lay across the room from each other in our beds. I cracked up. “General much?” I asked. He didn’t laugh back. “I mean, like, in the future. If you could come up with a perfect scenario for what your life would be, what would it be?” The question stole my breath. The answer…

“I still think that you’re overlooking something,” he said. “You say you have this great bond. But how can you, if he doesn’t know you?” “Come on, Dad,” I said. “He knows me.” “He does?” he asked. I could see he didn’t understand that knowing a person is about more than knowing whom they fantasize about. That’s the small…

We were silent again, except for my pounding heart, and the jitter in my throat, the feeling of waves crashing over my head — waves of some alien feeling that felt ridiculously good. Was this love? Was I in love with Ben? Because whatever I felt was everywhere in my body and it was something I wanted more of, immediately.…