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 CRISPThe young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
More Quentin Crisp Quotes
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Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.
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My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
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The war between the sexes is the only one in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.
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Flowers are words even a baby can understand.
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What would you be like if you were the only person in the world? If you want to be truly happy you must be that person.
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One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend.
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If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being.
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You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.
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Quentin Crisp (to handsome young man on the street): “What’s the matter, sexy? Don’t you like dehydrated fruit?
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Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
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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 don’t have to deal with anyone in America. They accept you the way you are.
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I don’t like peas, and I’m glad I don’t like them, because if I liked them I would eat them and I hate them.
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In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.
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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