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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

The measure of woman’s distaste for any part of her life lies not in the loudness of her lamentations (these are only an attempt to buy a martyr’s crown at a reduced price) but in her persistent pursuit of that occupation of which she never ceases to complain.
QUENTIN CRISP

Any Attempt Buy Cease Complain Crown Distaste Kie Lamentation Life Loudness Martyr Measure Occupation Part Persistent Price Pursuit Reduced Woman
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Happy Like Must Only Person That Truly Were World
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
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 went out into the world when I was about 22. I wrote books and I illustrated books and did book covers, and I taught tap-dancing, and I was a model in the art school. I had no ability for any of those things, but what else could I do?
QUENTIN CRISP

Ability Art Bool Cover Dance Illustrated Model School Tap Taught Tow Twenty Went World
Because it is in the nature of things that they become extreme, we have passed down from manliness to cruelty. If I had been told when I was 20 that there was a tavern in the town where the brave and the cruel were gathered together,
QUENTIN CRISP

Become Cruelty Down Extreme Manliness Nature Pass Thing
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
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
I would have run all the way and I would have gone up to the largest and leatheriest of the denizens and said: If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
QUENTIN CRISP

Bartender Leather Love Run Would Gone
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appalling Existence Glow Opinion Other Ourselves People Purpose Reconcile Thing Think
The English think that incompetence is the same thing as sincerity.
QUENTIN CRISP

English Incompetence Same Sincerity Thing Think
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
Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
QUENTIN CRISP

Deal Effort Extra Like Love Make One Out Understand
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
Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation of which the filing system has been lost?
QUENTIN CRISP

Assignation Been Fill House Lost System Vast Whole

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Quentin Crisp Quotes