Quentin Crisp Quotes - Page 5

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.

The continued propinquity of another human being cramps the style after a time unless that person is somebody you think you love. Then the burden becomes intolerable at once.

I've never not been famous.

Manners are love in a cool climate.

If I were God - and I never understand why I'm not - I should say, "Shop around, I don't think you'll find a better bargain than here."

Women have decided to be people, which is a great mistake. Women were nicer than people.

Exhibitionism is like a drug. Hooked in adolescence I was now taking doses so massive they would have killed a novice.

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?

You don't have to deal with anyone in America. They accept you the way you are.

The war between the sexes is the only one in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.

Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.

For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.

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."

I am a stereotype. I am an effeminate man.

The world now seems a stunningly ignoble place. It has not really grown all that much worse but appears to have done so because we know so much more about it than we did.

The key is never, never work. Nothing is more aging than work. It's not only the strain of getting up in the morning for work, but it's the resentment that settles on your face

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.

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.

Whenever we confront an unbridled desire we are surely in the presence of a tragedy-in-the-making.

If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.

People are not heterosexual or homosexual, just sexual.

Muddled syntax is the outward and audible sign of confused minds, and the misuse of grammar the result of illogical thinking.

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them. If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

Europeans have quarrelled since the beginning of time.

The trouble with European cities is that they are drenched in their history, almost all of which is terrible.