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 CRISPI’m happy to say she was laughing while she said it, but she meant it. I’ve never learned to be a candle burning in an empty room. So I go on the screen, and I say whatever I’m told to say.
More Quentin Crisp Quotes
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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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I don’t really act. I say the words the way I would say them if I meant them.
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To love another person you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
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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
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Vice is its own reward.
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You will survive if you believe in yourself.
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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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The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it
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Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.
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I never understood music. It seemed to me to be the maximum amount of noise conveying the minimum amount of information.
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I never saw Portsmouth by day.
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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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For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook.
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In England, nobody’s your friend.
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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