“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,”

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over the fence on the other side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn.

The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call “the trouble with you.” Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.

Abatement in the hostility of one’s enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.

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?”

Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who…have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.

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 (to handsome young man on the street): “What’s the matter, sexy? Don’t you like dehydrated fruit?

In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.

Exhibitionism is like a drug. Hooked in adolescence I was now taking doses so massive they would have killed a novice.

No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.

Men get laid, but women get screwed.

I never say ‘No’ to anything.

Ask yourself, if there was to be no blame, and if there was to be no praise, who would I be then?

I don’t think you can really be proud of being gay because it isn’t something you’ve done. You can only be proud of not being ashamed.

Women have decided to be people, which is a great mistake. Women were nicer than people.

The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Often I’ve had problems automatically bending to a lover’s will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, ‘This is what I love!’

The bottom line is that if you become a master at handling problems and overcoming obstacles, what can stop you from success? The answer is nothing! And if nothing can stop you, you become unstoppable!

I would become a therapist and a leader in terms of mental illness. But I’m not in the position.

The vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.

You become financially free when your passive income exceeds your expenses.

Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.

Become dust – and they will throw thee in the air; Become stone – and they will throw thee on glass.