- Katarina Egermann: Neither of us wants to mature. That's the reason we fight and torment each other and cry. Neither of us wants to grow up.
- Tim Mandelbaum: Maybe one should break down once in a while. I have several times. I don't know if it upset me. I think not. Usually about love. I need intimacy terribly. Where does one find it? I really mean it. Always the same torment. Then the body gets in the way and then the soul. And then one's loaded with hopes and expectations and compromises. God, I'm so theoretical!
- Tim Mandelbaum: I'm only a child. Then again, maybe not. I don't know about time. It doesn't exist, say those who've thought about it. I shut my eyes and feel like a 10-year-old. Physically as well. Then I open them and look in the mirror and an old man stands there. A childish old man, isn't that strange. A childish old man, that's all. No, something more.
- Tim Mandelbaum: My dreams were too lovely perhaps and as punishment - life shakes you when you least expect it.
- Peter Egermann: I dreamt I was sleeping. I dreamt I was dreaming. Everything was very sensual. Not just erotic. But meaningfully drawing my loins to a nice, strong scent of a woman's moisture, perspiration, saliva, fresh-smelling thick hair. I moved, eyes shut, over a shining broad surface. All was still. I was absolutely content and had a strange need to tell a funny story; but couldn't speak - which didn't bother me in the least. On the contrary, I felt this gliding had to do with my dumbness and that my brain was focused on my hands. Even my fingertips. Each finger had a little eye registering all the glittering surfaces and gliding itself. It was fine. It could stay that way. I thought or rather, I didn't think at all. A colorful ribbon floated out of my lips: If you are my death; welcome, my death. If you are my life; welcome, my life.
- Peter Egermann: I'd like to tell you what's on my mind. Everyone has worries, no? Mine is rather special. That's why I'm here. You think I talk a lot. True. I hesitate to speak. As long as I don't say it, it's just a dream. Saying it, will make it real.
- Professor Mogens Jensen: You have so little respect for your fear.
- Peter Egermann: Give me something to calm me?
- Professor Mogens Jensen: Go out for walks. It does wonders for depression and grim thoughts. Then drink coffee or cognac. You'll feel better.
- Peter Egermann: I see her moving in the bathroom, flooded by sunlight. She combs her hair. I've always enjoyed watching my wife. Even when we hated each other or when she was hateful, drunk, sick or angry. I've always enjoyed her movement, her scent, her presence.
- Professor Mogens Jensen: If you wish I can take you into my clinic. We have injections for everything, so, eventually you don't care whether you're Peter Egermann or Emperor of China.
- Katarina Egermann: If Peter isn't well, neither am I. I want to run home and hold him and say: from now now I understand everything you say, think and feel. I want to hold him tight until he notices me, because we don't see each other although we live so close and know everything about each other.
- Tim Mandelbaum: Most gays like women - not because we're feminine ourselves. But, because we're more in touch with our feelings.
- Tim Mandelbaum: I'm driven by forces I don't control. Doctors, lovers, pills, drugs, alcohol, work. Nothing helps. Secret forces. What are they called? I don't know. Maybe just aging. Wasting. I don't know. Forces I can't master.
- Tim Mandelbaum: I stare at my face in the mirror - it's quite familiar - and make sure that in this combination of blood and flesh and nerves and bone, there are two separate - I don't know what. Two separate entities. The dream of intimacy, tenderness, togetherness, abandon of the living. And on the other hand violence, filth, horror, threat of death. Sometimes I believe it all comes from one source. I don't know. How should I?
- Peter Egermann: I dreamt that I awoke from deepest slumber. I lay on the floor that was as soft as a thick carpet. I felt warm and content. Katarina lay beside me motionless, sleeping. I knew immediately that it was all a dream. I told myself I shouldn't be afraid and that the only danger was fear itself to be panic-striken and try to escape, to weep or scream or strike at the walls. I decided to stay calm. Katarina woke up slowly. I tried to speak to her, but couldn't reach her. She acted as though I wasn't there. She was soft and stimulatingly indifferent. I wanted to make love. But she avoided me and I couldn't enter her. She looked at me with half-shut eyes and smiled.
- Peter Egermann: There was a tender moment. Perfect silence. It's hard to describe that moment. The air changed. It was mild and easy to breathe. Grey light gave way to a misty dawn. That touched our wounded hearts. We faced each other in a sudden burst of closeness. Then came the horror.
- Katarina Egermann: I look back on our life, astounded, Think of our former reality: we were dreaming, playing or whatever the hell we did. This is the real reality. And it's unbearable. I speak, answer, think, get dressed, sleep and eat, those are daily needs, the hard surface. Underneath I'm crying. I weep for myself - because I may not be as I was. What has been may never again be, is gone forever, like a dream.
- Peter Egermann: We like our pleasure or perhaps each other's, I don't know. The best was cheating on each other. I use the word cheating, but it's wrong. It's morally derogatory. And we aren't. "Mutual sexual freedom," it's called.
- Tim Mandelbaum: Martin was a fine guy. We were very close but, as you know, no one's faithful. Not really. Homosexuals never are. Because of children. The sad fact we haven't any and can't adopt.