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It’s a strange situation, but people will pay your fare to get you to go and tell them how to be happy.

Quentin Crisp

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
Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret.
QUENTIN CRISP

Backward Doubt Forward Look Neither Regret
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abatement Been Enemy Hostility Over Signify Through Won
It’s a strange situation, but people will pay your fare to get you to go and tell them how to be happy.
QUENTIN CRISP

Build Fare Happy Pay Situation Strange Tell
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
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
A fair share of anything is starvation diet to an egomaniac.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Egomaniac Fair Share Starvation
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
As we all know from witnessing the consuming jealousy of husbands who are never faithful, people do not confine themselves to the emotions to which they are entitled.
QUENTIN CRISP

Consume Emotion Entitle Faithful Husband Jealousy Know People Witness
The English think that incompetence is the same thing as sincerity.
QUENTIN CRISP

English Incompetence Same Sincerity Thing Think
I never say ‘No’ to anything.
QUENTIN CRISP

never No Nothing Say
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
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Happy Like Must Only Person That Truly Were World
If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.
QUENTIN CRISP

Average Day Depravity Direct Express Family Fully Life People Person Price Single Starred Story Violence
In England, nobody’s your friend.
QUENTIN CRISP

Country Friend Nobisy One Liner Your
I went out into the world when I was about 22. I wrote books and I illustrated books and did book covers, and I taught tap-dancing, and I was a model in the art school. I had no ability for any of those things, but what else could I do?
QUENTIN CRISP

Ability Art Bool Cover Dance Illustrated Model School Tap Taught Tow Twenty Went World
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
QUENTIN CRISP

At All Housework Need To Do
To live in the past is to miss today’s opportunities and tomorrow’s blessings.
QUENTIN CRISP

Blessing Live Miss Opportunity Pass Today Tomorrow
There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evenings.
QUENTIN CRISP

Become Evening First Long Money Need Reason Say Second Something Third Write Writer
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
I had a friend who had two degrees of being made up: when invited I would say ‘Can I make up?’ and he would say ‘Oh yes – tinted?’, or he would say, ‘Oh yes – clotted?’
QUENTIN CRISP

Being Friend Invite Limited Made Yes
I don’t like peas, and I’m glad I don’t like them, because if I liked them I would eat them and I hate them.
QUENTIN CRISP

Eat Glad Hate Like Peas Them
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.
QUENTIN CRISP

Address Change Contempt Expand Universe Human Inhabited Outcast Side Suburb Time
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
The more people one has to love, the more one’s capacity to love stretches.
QUENTIN CRISP

Capacity More People Love Stretch

It’s a strange situation, but people will pay your fare to get you to go and tell them how to be happy.

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It’s a strange situation, but people will pay your fare to get you to go and tell them how to be happy.

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Popular Authors

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