-
The court was not previously aware of the prisoner's many accomplishments. In view of these, we see fit to impose the death penalty.
Quentin Crisp -
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.
Quentin Crisp
-
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.
Quentin Crisp -
I lost the love of all the homosexuals in the world by saying that Princess Diana was trash and got what she deserved. She could have been Queen of England - and she was swanning about Paris with Arabs. What disgraceful behavior. Going about saying she wanted to be the queen of hearts. The vulgarity of it is so overpowering.
Quentin Crisp -
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.
Quentin Crisp -
Other-cheekism is not only a way of purifying the soul, it is also part of every weak person's survival kit.
Quentin Crisp -
No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
Quentin Crisp -
Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.
Quentin Crisp
-
What matters is not whether you put your fork or knife together because you've finished your meal, or something like that. What matters is that you don't offend people, or hurt their feelings by mistake by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing.
Quentin Crisp -
The message that 'love' will solve all of our problems is repeated incessantly in contemporary culture - like a philosophical tom tom. It would be closer to the truth to say that love is a contagious and virulent disease which leaves a victim in a state of near imbecility, paralysis, profound melancholia, and sometimes culminates in death.
Quentin Crisp -
Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically - for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist - but then what isn't?
Quentin Crisp -
In fact I try to spend at least one, if not two days without ever leaving my room. Because if I didn't, when would I recharge my batteries?
Quentin Crisp -
All this cut-price transcendentalism does not prevent California from being a startlingly physical state. This becomes most obvious where Los Angeles saunters down to the sea. The region is called Venice.
Quentin Crisp -
As a test of the closeness of your relationship with the world, sex could never be a patch on being murdered. (That's when someone really does risk his life for you.)
Quentin Crisp
-
I had a friend who had two degrees of being made up: when invited I would say 'Can I make up?' and he would say 'Oh yes - tinted?', or he would say, 'Oh yes - clotted?'
Quentin Crisp -
I now know that if you describe things as better as they are, you are considered to be romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you are called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you are called a satirist.
Quentin Crisp -
Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who...have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.
Quentin Crisp -
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.
Quentin Crisp -
In Manhattan, when you're out of the front door, you're on, and you have to be ready to smile and speak to people.
Quentin Crisp -
Now you can leave home at any time you like.Your mother comes down and finds a picture of the Eiffel Tower on her plate. And she says, 'Oh! Rosemary's gone to Paris. No wonder the bathroom was so tidy.' And nobody minds. But in my day, to go abroad with all those wicked Frenchmen, what would become of them? So no-one ever went anywhere.
Quentin Crisp
-
The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it
Quentin Crisp -
I went out into the world when I was about 22. I wrote books and I illustrated books and did book covers, and I taught tap-dancing, and I was a model in the art school. I had no ability for any of those things, but what else could I do?
Quentin Crisp -
Every day someone notices me and waves to me, or stops and speaks to me, or asks me for an autograph, or photographs me.
Quentin Crisp -
I would never go to a place and live there because the weather was good or the scenery was beautiful or the architecture was wonderful. I would only go because the people are kind, and in America, everybody's your friend and happiness rains down from the sky.
Quentin Crisp