Quotes by Joseph Hansen

“Probably a sense of awareness, bringing to homosexuals of those far-off times a sense that they were not alone, that there were others who shared their predicament.”

“I think marriage is a civil contract. I dont know what theyre raving about. We should all have the right to marry whomever we wish, whether it be male or female. Thats what the 14th amendment provides: equal protection of the law.”

“I think it just showed homosexuals that being bold, being brave, coming out, you know, was not going to have the awful results that everybody always feared. That those days were passed, they were behind us. And that was a thrilling day; that was a thrilling day.”

“He did not draw me into the movement, but he was in it from the start. He and I had met at my twenty-second birthday party, in 1945. So we knew each other for a long, long time. And although Martin, a few years later, became very active and became the first editor of ONE Magazine, he didnt draw me in.”

“Oh God, there were a thousand limitations to the movement. The main thing was that people who might have financed the magazines and people who might have had more business sense and been cannier publishers, people with a sense of public relations and publicity and all kinds of things like that, didnt step into the movement.”

“If we do not drastically change, there will be no labor movement in this country,”

“It was hard for people to step out and say I am homosexual in those times, which is what they would have done were they to associate themselves with the movement by pitching in and working for it, because you had to start swimming against the current, and a very cold current it was - and very swift.”

“It was hard to ask anybody to take part in something that would get you stigmatized and make earning a living tough for you, not to say create friction with your family and so on.”

“Morris Kite was the chairman. I remember the first meeting of that committee, out in an abandoned Victorian mansion that was the first location of the Gay Community Services Center in Los Angeles, which Morris helped to found.”

“Because Don Slater was here, and the rest of these guys, Harry Hay, and other, let us say eccentric people were here and were willing to bet their all on an impossible long shot.”

Dont forget, and dont let your reader forget, that the small world in which you have held him for the last hour or two hasnt ended. Be aware, and make him aware, that tomorrow all of its remaining inhabitants will pick up the broken fragments of their lives, and carry on.

Have you children, Mr Brandstetter? He shook his head. I was one once. Does it help?

In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadnt. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say Im sorry to, I didnt mean it to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent--holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting.

She was sad and lost and alone in the dark, Cecil said. She needed somebody to hold her.And you think shes going to get tired of that?You did, Cecil said. You shut me right out.It was your decision, not mine, Dave said. You are the dearest thing in life to me. Youre bright and funny and gentle and decent and full of life. And I will never get tired of you, and neither will Chrissie. Its not up to her anyway. Youre the adult. Tell her the truth -- that it was an act of kindness that got out of hand.I cant hurt her like that, Cecil said. It will hurt more the longer you let it go on.

Cecil reached for Dave, but Dave stepped back. Dave, why are you doing this? Youre not getting paid. Lovejoy called you off the case. You want the truth? Youre compulsive. You cant leave it alone. Youre like Adam Streeter, you know that? You live for danger. I live for justice, Dave said.Justice is a dream, Cecil scoffed, a romantic ideal. Who the fuck gets justice in this life?(...)

And you never even reported it. You should have reported it. I could have took fingerprints. Id love to lock up them skinheads.What Im reporting is the gun, my Sig Sauer. Dave said. Hetzel will have it. I want it back.What did it cost you? Rose said.Thats not the point, Dave said. Its the only gun I ever owned. Im against guns. They give too many people power who have no right to it. Guns cancel out intelligence, reason, decency, civility, and put terror in their place. I got along without a gun most of my working life. But a man cant buck the odds forever. About five years back I bought the Sig Sauer. Im used to it. And I dont know that Im morally prepared to buy another one.

When people run out of probable things to do, they do improbable things.

You know what kind of a man Lonny Tooker is? The kind of a man that sets broken birds wings.Hitler loved dogs and babies, Dave said.

It happens to everyone and it happens fast.