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 CRISPI 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.
More Quentin Crisp Quotes
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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
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To live in the past is to miss today’s opportunities and tomorrow’s blessings.
QUENTIN CRISP -
The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
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However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
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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?
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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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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.
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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.
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You can’t be a person and a lady. If you’re a person, you can open the damned door yourself.
QUENTIN CRISP -
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.
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Happiness is the only thing I understand.
QUENTIN CRISP -
Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.
QUENTIN CRISP -
The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.
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Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
QUENTIN CRISP -
One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend.
QUENTIN CRISP