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The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen.

Quentin Crisp

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
Politics are not an instrument for effecting social change; they are the art of making the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appear Art Change Choice Effect Human Inevitable Instrument Make Matter Politics Social Wise
Women have decided to be people, which is a great mistake. Women were nicer than people.
QUENTIN CRISP

Decide Great Mistake Nicer People Women
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
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
I never saw Portsmouth by day.
QUENTIN CRISP

Day never Sawm Posts Youth
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
Ask yourself, if there was to be no blame, and if there was to be no praise, who would I be then?
QUENTIN CRISP

Ask Blame No Praise Then Yourself
Vice is its own reward.
QUENTIN CRISP

Own Reward Vice
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
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
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’
QUENTIN CRISP

Atheist Audience Believe Catholics Country God Northern People Protestants Said Stood Took Woman Yes
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
QUENTIN CRISP

Account Hearer Journey Laugh Misfortunate Nothing Permit Pleasantly Shorten
Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.
QUENTIN CRISP

Absolute Appear Get Manner Swine Want Way
Never get involved with someone who wants to change you
QUENTIN CRISP

Change Get Involve never Some Want You
Quentin Crisp (to handsome young man on the street): “What’s the matter, sexy? Don’t you like dehydrated fruit?
QUENTIN CRISP

Dehydrate Handsome Man Matter People Sexy Street Young
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
To love another person you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
QUENTIN CRISP

Another Destiny Fragment Love Person Some Undertake
You don’t have to deal with anyone in America. They accept you the way you are.
QUENTIN CRISP

Accept Anyone Country Deal Way
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
It’s no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, ‘Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.’ By then, pigs will be your style.
QUENTIN CRISP

Ballet Big Dancer Farm Go Meant Pig Really Run Say Style Thirty Year
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
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
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
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
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 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

The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen.

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The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen.

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Popular Authors

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