Quentin Crisp Quotes
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The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.
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Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.
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However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
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What would you be like if you were the only person in the world? If you want to be truly happy you must be that person.
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I am asked how to remain young, and I say 'Never, never work.' And that, of course, is the secret of it.
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Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.
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God, from whose territory I had withdrawn my ambassadors at the age of fourteen. It had become obvious that he was never going to do a thing I said.
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As someone remarked, when told the new atomic bombs would explode without a bang, 'they can’t leave anything alone.'
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You should make no effort to try to join society, stay right where you are. Give your name and serial number and wait for society to come to you.
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I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay!
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Other-cheekism is not only a way of purifying the soul, it is also part of every weak person's survival kit.
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The simplest comment on my book came from my ballet teacher. She said, 'I wish you hadn’t made every line funny. It’s so depressing.'
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He explained to me that he wanted a simple boy-meets-girl story with lyrics. This I felt was quite beyond my capabilities. I did not know any boys who met girls.
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The proprietor had hair so red that pigmentation had flowed out into every visible inch of his skin and even into the pinks of his eyes, as the colour of flowering cherry trees stains their leaves.
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Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.
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Another friend began to say, 'Well, Quentin has a problem of adjusting himself to society and he...' This sentence was never finished. The ballet teacher expostulated, 'I don't agree. Quentin does exactly as he pleases. The rest of us have to adapt ourselves to him.'
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No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
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I have to work in England, but here in America you don't have to work. You can sort of enter the profession of being.
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In England, the system is benign and the people are hostile. In America, the people are friendlyand the system is brutal!
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The programs constantly repeat themselves and one another. No one has yet had the nerve to say, 'As we have nothing sensible to tell you between now and 8:30, please tune in again then.
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Many hooligans discover to their shame that they have scruples; they have roots and, greatest disadvantage of all, they have hope. The fathers superior of the order do not try to influence their children in Satan; they merely shake their heads in sorrow. They know that the apostate must work out his own damnation.
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As we all know from witnessing the consuming jealousy of husbands who are never faithful, people do not confine themselves to the emotions to which they are entitled.
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I acquiesced in this on the grounds that the most anyone can expect from a holiday is a change of agony.
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I have come to think that both sex and politics are a mistake and that any attempt to establish a connection between the two is the greatest error of all.