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Happiness is the only thing I understand.

Quentin Crisp

Because it is in the nature of things that they become extreme, we have passed down from manliness to cruelty. If I had been told when I was 20 that there was a tavern in the town where the brave and the cruel were gathered together,
QUENTIN CRISP

Become Cruelty Down Extreme Manliness Nature Pass Thing
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
Assoon as I stepped out of my mother’s womb on to dry land, I realized that I had made a mistake?but the trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Children Dry Land Made Mother Out Realize Return Soon Step Trouble Womb
He knew them only ‘in Braille’ – the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial – after a life like that?
QUENTIN CRISP

Back Bleat Curtain Drag Drawn Life Love Name People Person Room
However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
QUENTIN CRISP

However Level Low Man never Police Reach Sink
Never get involved with someone who wants to change you
QUENTIN CRISP

Change Get Involve never Some Want You
Our clothes are too much a part of us for most of us ever to be entirely indifferent to their condition: it is as though the fabric were indeed a natural extension of the body, or even of the soul.
QUENTIN CRISP

Cloth Condition Ever Fabric Indeed Indifferent Most Much Our Part Though Too
Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.
QUENTIN CRISP

Character Dab Euphemism Find Hand Intelligence Modify Powerless Weakness
The happiest moments in any affair take place after the loved one has learned to accommodate the lover and before the maddening personality of either party has emerged like a jagged rock from the receding tides of lust and curiosity.
QUENTIN CRISP

Accommodate Affair Before Happiest Learn Love Lover Maddening Moment Personality Place Take
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
I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appetite Axiomatic Gratification People Revolt Shameless Share Take Witness
The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Being Century Damm Disco Listen Music Open Part Twentieth Worst
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
QUENTIN CRISP

Autograph From Installment Last Miss Obituary Serial
Exhibitionism is like a drug. Hooked in adolescence I was now taking doses so massive they would have killed a novice.
QUENTIN CRISP

Adolescence Drug Exhibitions Hook Kill Massive Novice Take
Fashion is not style. Nay, we can say more: Fashion is instead of style. Style is an idiom springing spontaneously from the personality but deliberately maintained.
QUENTIN CRISP

Deliberate Fashion Idiom Instead Maintain Personality Spontaneously Style
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

Happiness is the only thing I understand.

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Happiness is the only thing I understand.

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