black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The happiest moments in any affair take place after the loved one has learned to accommodate the lover and before the maddening personality of either party has emerged like a jagged rock from the receding tides of lust and curiosity.

Quentin Crisp

What my parents thought of this, I don’t know. But they bore it. And the real problem was not my sin, but my unemployability.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bore Know Parent Problem Real Sin Thought Unemployability
I never saw Portsmouth by day.
QUENTIN CRISP

Day never Sawm Posts Youth
The more people one has to love, the more one’s capacity to love stretches.
QUENTIN CRISP

Capacity More People Love Stretch
The … problem that confronts homosexuals is that they set out to win the love of a “real” man. If they succeed, they fail. A man who “goes with” other men is not what they would call a real man. The conundrum is incapable of resolution, but that does not make homosexuals give it up.
QUENTIN CRISP

Confront Fail Homosexual Love Man Out Problem Real Set Succeed Win
Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.
QUENTIN CRISP

Book Etiquette Inch Monastery More Nothing Person Rapidly Read
I have to realise that as I am only English and am allowed to live in America, I have to give something in return. And since I cannot build a hospital, or endow a university, I can only give my infinite availability.
QUENTIN CRISP

Allow Availability Build Country English Hospital Only Realize Return Since Something University
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

Back Bleat Curtain Drag Drawn Life Love Name People Person Room
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
Flowers are words even a baby can understand.
QUENTIN CRISP

Baby Even Flower Understand Word
If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Being Go Talent
You can’t be a person and a lady. If you’re a person, you can open the damned door yourself.
QUENTIN CRISP

Dammed Door Lady Open Person Yourself
Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.
QUENTIN CRISP

Believe Can Fate Forward Learn See You
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
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
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
You will survive if you believe in yourself.
QUENTIN CRISP

Believe Survive Yourself
To lose is not always failure.
QUENTIN CRISP

Always Failure Lose
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
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Ashamed Being Gay Proud Really Something Sone Think
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
It’s been agony but I couldn’t have done it any other way.
QUENTIN CRISP

Agony Been Could Done Have Other Way
People say to me, “When did you come out?” But I was never in! When I was about six, I was swanning around the house in clothes that belonged to my mother and my grandmother which I’d found in an attic, saying, “I am a beautiful princess!”
QUENTIN CRISP

Around Beautiful Cloth Come Dis Grandmother House Mother Out People Princess Say Six Swan
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
Happiness is the only thing I understand.
QUENTIN CRISP

Happiness One Liner Only Thing Understand
I never say ‘No’ to anything.
QUENTIN CRISP

never No Nothing Say
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
Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
QUENTIN CRISP

Character Consist Develop Move Self Sorely Sufficiency Toward

The happiest moments in any affair take place after the loved one has learned to accommodate the lover and before the maddening personality of either party has emerged like a jagged rock from the receding tides of lust and curiosity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The happiest moments in any affair take place after the loved one has learned to accommodate the lover and before the maddening personality of either party has emerged like a jagged rock from the receding tides of lust and curiosity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Quentin Crisp Quotes