Hush Quotes

“He wanted the world to be the color of his dreams, wanted to paint in primary colors.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“Teach me how to touch you. How to make love to you. Tell me what you need.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“I want to live. I want to be me.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“When had his back been broken? When had his seventeen-year-old passion been snuffed? Was it his professor’s words? Or was it the hundreds, thousands, millions of side-eyed glares and breathless sneers, the looks that promised a beating, a killing, if he only waited around for the pleasure. The news that told him every day he was worth less than all others. He was expendable. He wasn’t worth saving. His life was measured in statistics, in timescales and chances and tsks and sighs.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“But his tower was in a lake, an ocean, an ocean made of tears, tears of all the men in all the years, decades, centuries before him, who had their dreams crushed, their lives destroyed, when someone found out their Secret.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“He was quickly becoming Tom’s home base, his tree fort, his lighthouse, and his castle.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“He was a refugee of his own existence, and he walked through the crowd, the pulsing, vibrant, celebration bursting with life that surrounded him. The sun was warm on his skin, on his face, like that autumn day three decades ago. But this was purely warm, warm with life, with future, with happiness. The cold wind, the terror, was gone.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“He wished he could follow him, go wherever he went, stay by his side for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the rest of the year. The rest of his life.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“He wanted the world to be the color of his dreams, wanted to paint in primary colors. He wanted to stride away from fear, and build the world that rang out in the protest marches, in the calls to action. He wanted the future, and wanted it in his hands.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“Tom tipped his head back and smiled, his face to the sun. Let osmosis work its magic, let the happiness, the heat, the life seep into his skin and into his bones. Soak this up, this day, this moment, the rainbow colors and the laughter, until his skeleton was wreathed in rainbows and each individual fiber in his muscles pulsed with pride. Like a sailor lost at sea, he swam furiously for the shore, for this shore, which he never, ever imagined could be.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“Tears pricked his eyes, and he swallowed hard, trying to force back a choking panic that seemed to rise within him, a swell of grief that nearly knocked him down. What had he missed? When had all this—all of who he was—become something to celebrate?”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“Celebrate your fabulous life, the advertisement had said. Come out and party! He needed to do this. He needed to take this step, at the very least. Be among his people. Be in solidarity with himself. Walk in the sunlight as a gay man—if only to himself—for once in his adult life.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“What if he did find someone? What if he—somehow—found a man who wanted a middle-aged, completely boring, practically re-virginized, servant to a Basset Hound?”
― Tal Bauer, Hush

“Gay men and women on TV were relegated to the tragic roles—dying of AIDS, dying of violence, dying of drugs, dying because that’s what gay people did; they just died—or to the comedic roles, where they were slapstick sidekicks, or inconsequential buffoons, never to be taken seriously. A whole swath of people, written off as a momentary tragedy or as inconsequential frippery.”
― Tal Bauer, Hush