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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

The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as ‘Soho’ poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.
QUENTIN CRISP

Air Come Diagnosed Genius Grace Have Poverty Soho Suffer
I simply haven’t the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.
QUENTIN CRISP

Being Force Have Imagine Keep never Orbit Planet Revolve Simple Stop Sudden
One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend.
QUENTIN CRISP

Always Anyone Last Longer Love Wary Weekend
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
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
Ask yourself, if there was to be no blame, and if there was to be no praise, who would I be then?
QUENTIN CRISP

Ask Blame No Praise Then Yourself
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 flagrantly gay Quentin Crisp dealt with homophobic bullying by refusing to bow to its onslaught. His number listed in the phone directory, he responded to derogatory remarks accompanied with a stated intent to kill him by asking, “Would you like to make an appointment?”
QUENTIN CRISP

Bullying Country Directory Flagrantly Gay Homophobic Listed Number Onslaught People Person Phone Refuse
Mainstream people dislike homosexuality because they can’t help concentrating on what homosexual men do to one another. And when you contemplate what people do, you think of yourself doing it. And they don’t like that. That’s the famous joke:
QUENTIN CRISP

Another Concentrate Dislike Help Homosexually Mainstream Men One People
I never say ‘No’ to anything.
QUENTIN CRISP

never No Nothing Say
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
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
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
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
I would have run all the way and I would have gone up to the largest and leatheriest of the denizens and said: If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bartender Leather Love Run Would Gone
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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