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If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.

Quentin Crisp

The … problem that confronts homosexuals is that they set out to win the love of a “real” man. If they succeed, they fail. A man who “goes with” other men is not what they would call a real man. The conundrum is incapable of resolution, but that does not make homosexuals give it up.
QUENTIN CRISP

Confront Fail Homosexual Love Man Out Problem Real Set Succeed Win
Fashion is a way of not having to decide who you are. Style is deciding who you are and being able to perpetuate it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Able Being Decide Fashion Perpetuate Style Way
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

Altruistically Basic Block Building Good Lie Manner Mutual Ofcourse People
People say to me, “When did you come out?” But I was never in! When I was about six, I was swanning around the house in clothes that belonged to my mother and my grandmother which I’d found in an attic, saying, “I am a beautiful princess!”
QUENTIN CRISP

Around Beautiful Cloth Come Dis Grandmother House Mother Out People Princess Say Six Swan
The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
QUENTIN CRISP

Always Conform Problem Rebel Same Time Young
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appalling Existence Glow Opinion Other Ourselves People Purpose Reconcile Thing Think
I recommend limiting one’s involvement in other people’s lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. This may seem too stoical a position in these madly passionate times, but madly passionate people rarely make good on their madly passionate promises.
QUENTIN CRISP

Involvement Limit Live Minimum People Pleasanity Recommend Scant
There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evenings.
QUENTIN CRISP

Become Evening First Long Money Need Reason Say Second Something Third Write Writer
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

Ability Art Bool Cover Dance Illustrated Model School Tap Taught Tow Twenty Went World
You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.
QUENTIN CRISP

Come End Have Interview Personality Stop
Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret.
QUENTIN CRISP

Backward Doubt Forward Look Neither Regret
In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.
QUENTIN CRISP

Actor Country Every Evry Flat Inattentive Possibly Potential Stage Surface Unemoloy Waiter
Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
QUENTIN CRISP

Deal Effort Extra Like Love Make One Out Understand
Abatement in the hostility of one’s enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abatement Been Enemy Hostility Over Signify Through Won
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
QUENTIN CRISP

Cologne Diplomatic Euphemism Truth Unpleasant Wear
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appear Done Grown Ignoble Much Now Place Really Seem Stunningly Word

If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.

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If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.

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Popular Authors

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