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I have to realise that as I am only English and am allowed to live in America, I have to give something in return. And since I cannot build a hospital, or endow a university, I can only give my infinite availability.

Quentin Crisp

If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
QUENTIN CRISP

Be Better Consider Describe Romantic Thing Will Worse
Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.
QUENTIN CRISP

Alone Down Drag Father Full Kepp Level Mother People Realize Time Until Year
Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Ask Inside Look Outside Unpack
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
Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
QUENTIN CRISP

Character Consist Develop Move Self Sorely Sufficiency Toward
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
QUENTIN CRISP

Age Assessment Face Key More never Nothing Only Steel Strain Work
Vice is its own reward.
QUENTIN CRISP

Own Reward Vice
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
Never get involved with someone who wants to change you
QUENTIN CRISP

Change Get Involve never Some Want You
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
QUENTIN CRISP

Being Consume Deliberate Desire Hand Human Most Other Person Plant Some
I don’t really act. I say the words the way I would say them if I meant them.
QUENTIN CRISP

Act Meant Really Say Them Word Would
No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abandon Concentration Define Efforts Require Else Enormous Everything Happiness
It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn’t give enough.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Explain Give Little Relationship Require Take Untrue
If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Being Go Talent
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

Country Do Expect Happiness Impression Live Not Time
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 have to realise that as I am only English and am allowed to live in America, I have to give something in return. And since I cannot build a hospital, or endow a university, I can only give my infinite availability.

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I have to realise that as I am only English and am allowed to live in America, I have to give something in return. And since I cannot build a hospital, or endow a university, I can only give my infinite availability.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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