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Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Quentin Crisp

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

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
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
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
Happiness is the only thing I understand.
QUENTIN CRISP

Happiness One Liner Only Thing Understand
It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn’t give enough.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Explain Give Little Relationship Require Take Untrue
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
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
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.”
QUENTIN CRISP

Around Bargain Better Find God Shop Should Think Understand
I never saw Portsmouth by day.
QUENTIN CRISP

Day never Sawm Posts Youth
I recommend limiting one’s involvement in other people’s lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. This may seem too stoical a position in these madly passionate times, but madly passionate people rarely make good on their madly passionate promises.
QUENTIN CRISP

Involvement Limit Live Minimum People Pleasanity Recommend Scant
Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Ask Inside Look Outside Unpack
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
It’s been agony but I couldn’t have done it any other way.
QUENTIN CRISP

Agony Been Could Done Have Other Way
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
Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret.
QUENTIN CRISP

Backward Doubt Forward Look Neither Regret

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

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Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

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Popular Authors

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