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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?

Quentin Crisp

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bartender Kill Love Truly
I like living in one room and have never known what people do with the room they are not in.
QUENTIN CRISP

Know Love never One People Room
Why get married? For human beings, marriage is such an unnatural state. If you want monogamy, it has been said, you should marry a swan.
QUENTIN CRISP

Being Human Mariage Married State Such Unnatural
Our clothes are too much a part of us for most of us ever to be entirely indifferent to their condition: it is as though the fabric were indeed a natural extension of the body, or even of the soul.
QUENTIN CRISP

Cloth Condition Ever Fabric Indeed Indifferent Most Much Our Part Though Too
The key is never, never work. Nothing is more aging than work. It’s not only the strain of getting up in the morning for work, but it’s the resentment that settles on your face
QUENTIN CRISP

Age Assessment Face Key More never Nothing Only Steel Strain Work
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
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
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
You don’t have to deal with anyone in America. They accept you the way you are.
QUENTIN CRISP

Accept Anyone Country Deal Way
Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.
QUENTIN CRISP

Adopt Are Fashion When Know Who You
If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Being Go Talent
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Difficult Done Find Idea Inflammatory Religious Terrifying Understand Wany
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
The more people one has to love, the more one’s capacity to love stretches.
QUENTIN CRISP

Capacity More People Love Stretch
While I have very little to say in favor of sex (it’s vastly overrated, it’s frequently unnecessary, and it’s messy), it is greatly to be preferred to the interminable torments of romantic agony through which two people tear one another limb from limb while professing altruistic devotion.
QUENTIN CRISP

Favour Frequently Little Messy Overrated Say Unnecessary Vastly

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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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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