The Emperor Waltz Quotes

“There’s someone for everyone, here in London, they always say.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“You see, some of us just find our niches somehow.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“Blend in!’ Paul said. ‘Blend in!”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“You’re the best friend I ever had who I’ve never been to bed with,’ Paul had once said to Duncan.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“Do you not know? No Sicilian will wear underwear for five months. It is just too hot. Oh, the day in September when you have to put on your underwear!”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“People talk about anal sex as though it’s the be-all and end-all of gay identity.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“The only good drugs are illegal drugs.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“Gay men needed lightbulbs too.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“I love men, I love books, I can’t get enough of them.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“This is a good place for thinking about your life, a few days in this place.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“I’m reading Edmund White. It’s so nice. All about Jack Holmes and his great big penis. It’s like he’s got a little pet in the house that he needs to take for walks sometimes, in the park. I really like it.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“When you think of the Gay Plague, it’s really for the best these days that we put on a cheerful face and get on with what queens do best.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“When I go to bed with a man,’ he had said once, and Duncan now said for the benefit of the carriage and the complaining woman, ‘I expect him to maintain full erection – full erection – from the moment of nudity onwards. Do I make myself plain? The very first moment of nudity. Anything else – anything that falls short of that – I regard as a personal insult.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“The last message he’d had from him was on the back of a postcard with a picture of the Duke of Edinburgh on the front, and the farewell message, handwritten in blue biro in Paul’s looping, confident hand, had said, ‘Suck a black man’s cock for me, darling.’ He had been spared blindness, then. The next he had heard was a hoarse-voiced man announcing himself as Paul’s father, and Paul had died in the hospice.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“Where are the lesbians tonight, then?’ Alan said. ‘Why are we talking about them when they’re not interested enough to come to the discussion?’
‘They’re separatismed,’ Duncan said.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“If you wanted lesbians to come to a discussion, too, it might be better not to call your group the Gay Men’s Group.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz

“The Nude Male was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and was largely full of pictures of Greek vases, which hadn’t been considered rude since Queen Victoria died.”
― Philip Hensher, The Emperor Waltz