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I’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.

Quentin Crisp

I never saw Portsmouth by day.
QUENTIN CRISP

Day never Sawm Posts Youth
Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.
QUENTIN CRISP

Absolute Appear Get Manner Swine Want Way
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
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
QUENTIN CRISP

Father Mother Protect Threatened World
Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
QUENTIN CRISP

Grave Gunny Happen Life Me Thing Way
The more people one has to love, the more one’s capacity to love stretches.
QUENTIN CRISP

Capacity More People Love Stretch
I asked a girl who came from America to England, when I was only English, and she admitted she had been to a drama school. And I said, “What did they teach you?” And she said, “They taught me to be a candle burning in an empty room.”
QUENTIN CRISP

Admit Ask Been Burn Came Candle Country Drama Empty English Girl Out Room School She Taught Teach
The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call “the trouble with you.” Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.
QUENTIN CRISP

Interior Involve Journey Search Style
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?
QUENTIN CRISP

Back Bleat Curtain Drag Drawn Life Love Name People Person Room
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
To lose is not always failure.
QUENTIN CRISP

Always Failure Lose
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
I don’t think you can really be proud of being gay because it isn’t something you’ve done. You can only be proud of not being ashamed.
QUENTIN CRISP

Ashamed Being Gay Proud Really Something Sone Think
I don’t really act. I say the words the way I would say them if I meant them.
QUENTIN CRISP

Act Meant Really Say Them Word Would
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
QUENTIN CRISP

Account Hearer Journey Laugh Misfortunate Nothing Permit Pleasantly Shorten

I’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.

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I’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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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