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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

Quentin Crisp

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
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
If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bartender Kill Love Truly
To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.
QUENTIN CRISP

All Despise Disappoint Everybody Forgive Know Realize
No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abandon Concentration Define Efforts Require Else Enormous Everything Happiness
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
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
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as ‘Soho’ poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.
QUENTIN CRISP

Air Come Diagnosed Genius Grace Have Poverty Soho Suffer
A fair share of anything is starvation diet to an egomaniac.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Egomaniac Fair Share Starvation
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
Men get laid, but women get screwed.
QUENTIN CRISP

Get Laid Man Screw Women
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
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
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
I’ve never not been famous.
QUENTIN CRISP

Been Famous never
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
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
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
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
Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
QUENTIN CRISP

Character Consist Develop Move Self Sorely Sufficiency Toward
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
QUENTIN CRISP

Cologne Diplomatic Euphemism Truth Unpleasant Wear
You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.
QUENTIN CRISP

Come End Have Interview Personality Stop
The flagrantly gay Quentin Crisp dealt with homophobic bullying by refusing to bow to its onslaught. His number listed in the phone directory, he responded to derogatory remarks accompanied with a stated intent to kill him by asking, “Would you like to make an appointment?”
QUENTIN CRISP

Bullying Country Directory Flagrantly Gay Homophobic Listed Number Onslaught People Person Phone Refuse
And were then to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man’s soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left.
QUENTIN CRISP

Diagonality Garden Left Look Lost Originality Other Right Soul Were
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
In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.
QUENTIN CRISP

Actor Country Every Evry Flat Inattentive Possibly Potential Stage Surface Unemoloy Waiter

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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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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