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He knew them only ‘in Braille’ – the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial – after a life like that?

Quentin Crisp

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

Autograph From Installment Last Miss Obituary Serial
I never say ‘No’ to anything.
QUENTIN CRISP

never No Nothing Say
The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it
QUENTIN CRISP

Curiosity Encourage Individuality Neighbour Should Tribute
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Alone Down Drag Father Full Kepp Level Mother People Realize Time Until Year
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
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
When I was young, we thought that Oscar Wilde was a great nobleman who had thrown his life away for love. Nothing could be less true. He slept with East Enders who were procured for him by Lord Alfred Douglas.
QUENTIN CRISP

Away Great Life Love Nobleman Oscar Through Throw Wide Young
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 trouble with children is that they’re not returnable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Children Returnable Trouble
If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bartender Kill Love Truly
Fashion is a way of not having to decide who you are. Style is deciding who you are and being able to perpetuate it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Able Being Decide Fashion Perpetuate Style Way
I never saw Portsmouth by day.
QUENTIN CRISP

Day never Sawm Posts Youth
Never sweep. After four years the dirt gets no worse.
QUENTIN CRISP

After Dirt Four Get never Sweep Worse Year
Fashion 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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Deliberate Fashion Idiom Instead Maintain Personality Spontaneously Style
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
Happiness is the only thing I understand.
QUENTIN CRISP

Happiness One Liner Only Thing Understand
No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abandon Concentration Define Efforts Require Else Enormous Everything Happiness
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
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Children Dry Land Made Mother Out Realize Return Soon Step Trouble Womb
When asked, ‘Shall I tell my mother I’m gay?’, I reply, ‘Never tell your mother anything.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Ask Gay Mother never Shall Tell
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
Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret.
QUENTIN CRISP

Backward Doubt Forward Look Neither Regret
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
The gymnasiacs of Venice, in California, are so addicted to these practices that there has arisen a nation of men who can no longer put their arms against their sides
QUENTIN CRISP

Addict Arisen Arm Country Gymnastics Longer Men Nation People Practice Side
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
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

He knew them only ‘in Braille’ – the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial – after a life like that?

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He knew them only ‘in Braille’ – the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial – after a life like that?

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