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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

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
QUENTIN CRISP

Autograph From Installment Last Miss Obituary Serial
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
Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation of which the filing system has been lost?
QUENTIN CRISP

Assignation Been Fill House Lost System Vast Whole
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
For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook.
QUENTIN CRISP

Cool Flavor Instant Peel Sex Stuff Superdsede
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
People are not heterosexual or homosexual, just sexual.
QUENTIN CRISP

Heterosexual Homosexual Just People Sexual
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 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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.
QUENTIN CRISP

Difficult Done Find Idea Inflammatory Religious Terrifying Understand Wany
The trouble with children is that they’re not returnable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Children Returnable Trouble
Women have decided to be people, which is a great mistake. Women were nicer than people.
QUENTIN CRISP

Decide Great Mistake Nicer People Women
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
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
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
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
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
In England, the system is benign and the people are hostile. In America, the people are friendlyand the system is brutal!
QUENTIN CRISP

Benigm Brutal Country Friendly Hostile People System
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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