Fran Lebowitz on youth

Q:   Young people are often a target for you.

A:   I wouldn't say that I dislike the young.  I'm simply not a fan of naivete.  I mean, unless you have an erotic interest in them, what other interest could you have?  What are they going to possibly say that's of interest?  People ask me "aren't you interested in what they're thinking?"  What could they be thinking?  This is not a middle-aged, curmudgeonly attitude.  I didn't like people that age even when I was that age.

-- from Paris Review, Summer 1993

Guest, by Vikram Seth

I woke.  He mumbled things in the next bed.
I lay there for an hour or so.  At four
The alarm rang.  He got out of bed.  He wore
Nothing.  I felt his sleepy classic head
And long-limbed body stir my quiescent heart.
I'd thought that I was free.  Wrong from the start.
I found I loved him entirely instead.

There was no real hope.  "Guy loving guy?
Man, that's a weird trip- and not for me."
I accepted that.  But next day warily
We coiled to snap or spring.  Rash truth.  To lie
Still could have spared the trust; the warmth as well.
I left his room that day.  I try to tell
Myself this sorrow like this ink will dry.

-- from 12 Modern Indian Poets