The trouble with children is that they’re not returnable.
QUENTIN CRISPFashion 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.
More Quentin Crisp Quotes
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Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically – for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist – but then what isn’t?
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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.
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I don’t really act. I say the words the way I would say them if I meant them.
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If I were God – and I never understand why I’m not – I should say, “Shop around, I don’t think you’ll find a better bargain than here.”
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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.
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To love another person you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
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Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
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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.
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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.
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The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it
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What would you be like if you were the only person in the world? If you want to be truly happy you must be that person.
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Manners are love in a cool climate.
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I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share.
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Assoon as I stepped out of my mother’s womb on to dry land, I realized that I had made a mistake?but the trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
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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