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The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.

Quentin Crisp

You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.
QUENTIN CRISP

Come End Have Interview Personality Stop
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
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
And were then to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man’s soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left.
QUENTIN CRISP

Diagonality Garden Left Look Lost Originality Other Right Soul Were
The measure of woman’s distaste for any part of her life lies not in the loudness of her lamentations (these are only an attempt to buy a martyr’s crown at a reduced price) but in her persistent pursuit of that occupation of which she never ceases to complain.
QUENTIN CRISP

Any Attempt Buy Cease Complain Crown Distaste Kie Lamentation Life Loudness Martyr Measure Occupation Part Persistent Price Pursuit Reduced Woman
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

Being Friend Invite Limited Made Yes
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
What my parents thought of this, I don’t know. But they bore it. And the real problem was not my sin, but my unemployability.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bore Know Parent Problem Real Sin Thought Unemployability
While I have very little to say in favor of sex (it’s vastly overrated, it’s frequently unnecessary, and it’s messy), it is greatly to be preferred to the interminable torments of romantic agony through which two people tear one another limb from limb while professing altruistic devotion.
QUENTIN CRISP

Favour Frequently Little Messy Overrated Say Unnecessary Vastly
It may be true that artists adopt a flamboyant appearance, but it’s also true that people who look funny get stuck with the arts.
QUENTIN CRISP

Adopt Also Appearance Art Artist Flamboyant Funny Look People Stuck True
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.
QUENTIN CRISP

Address Change Contempt Expand Universe Human Inhabited Outcast Side Suburb Time
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
QUENTIN CRISP

Account Hearer Journey Laugh Misfortunate Nothing Permit Pleasantly Shorten
The trouble with European cities is that they are drenched in their history, almost all of which is terrible.
QUENTIN CRISP

Almost City Country Drench History Terrible Trouble
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
To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Despise Disappoint Everybody Forgive Know Realize

The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.

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The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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