I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.
Interpretation
The quote warns against wasting time on fear rather than love, emphasizing the brevity of life.
Armistead Maupin reflects on the regret of having surrendered his youth to the fears of others, suggesting that he could have spent that time loving and connecting with someone special. He urges others not to make the same mistake, highlighting the idea that life is too short to let fear dictate one's relationships and experiences.
In practice
Use this quote to inspire a friend who is hesitant to pursue a relationship.
In her opinion, the parrots were annoying arrogant. You could buy the most beautiful one in town, she observed, but that won't make it love you. You could feed it, care for it and exclaim over its loveliness, but there was nothing to guarantee that it would stay home with you. There had to be a lesson in there somewhere.
My mother once told me that if a married couple puts a penny in a pot for every time they make love in the first year, and takes a penny out every time after that, they'll never get all the pennies out of the pot.
But it's amazing how many people think that gay men should slink off into the shadows when it comes to having friendships with children.
Oh, Mona, we're all damned fools! Some of us just have more fun with it than others. Loosen up, dear! Don't be so afraid to cry . . . or laugh, for that matter. Laugh all you want and cry all you want and whistle at pretty men in the street and to hell with anybody who thinks you're a damned fool!
I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.
My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.
She would not shed a tear, she would not waste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth of memory.
What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play; Life is a cabaret, old chum, Come to the cabaret.
The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in St. Peter says, “Of course, just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars”. St. Peter says, “What a pity was there nothing worth fighting for”?
Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.
Life is - the way God has given it to me was just a platter - a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful.
I remember nothing of this, no ambulance rides, nothing. Nothing between switching out the bedside lamp and the sudden indignity of rebirth: the slaps, the brightness, the tubing, the speed, the urgent insistence that I be choked back into breathing life. I have felt so sorry for babies ever since.
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