black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.

Quentin Crisp

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’
QUENTIN CRISP

Atheist Audience Believe Catholics Country God Northern People Protestants Said Stood Took Woman Yes
If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.
QUENTIN CRISP

Average Day Depravity Direct Express Family Fully Life People Person Price Single Starred Story Violence
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
If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
QUENTIN CRISP

Be Better Consider Describe Romantic Thing Will Worse
You fall out of your mother’s womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
QUENTIN CRISP

Life Love Relationship
Never sweep. After four years the dirt gets no worse.
QUENTIN CRISP

After Dirt Four Get never Sweep Worse Year
Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.
QUENTIN CRISP

Country Down Gdrag Keep Level never People Person
The trouble with European cities is that they are drenched in their history, almost all of which is terrible.
QUENTIN CRISP

Almost City Country Drench History Terrible Trouble
You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.
QUENTIN CRISP

Come End Have Interview Personality Stop
You can’t be a person and a lady. If you’re a person, you can open the damned door yourself.
QUENTIN CRISP

Dammed Door Lady Open Person Yourself
I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appetite Axiomatic Gratification People Revolt Shameless Share Take Witness
If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.
QUENTIN CRISP

Anything Extend Hard Love Men Unlovable
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
Vice is its own reward.
QUENTIN CRISP

Own Reward Vice
Abatement in the hostility of one’s enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.
QUENTIN CRISP

Abatement Been Enemy Hostility Over Signify Through Won
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 CRISP

Altruistically Basic Block Building Good Lie Manner Mutual Ofcourse People
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
I had a friend who had two degrees of being made up: when invited I would say ‘Can I make up?’ and he would say ‘Oh yes – tinted?’, or he would say, ‘Oh yes – clotted?’
QUENTIN CRISP

Being Friend Invite Limited Made Yes
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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Eat Glad Hate Like Peas Them
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
I’ve never not been famous.
QUENTIN CRISP

Been Famous never
Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.
QUENTIN CRISP

Believe Can Fate Forward Learn See You
The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it
QUENTIN CRISP

Curiosity Encourage Individuality Neighbour Should Tribute
The world now seems a stunningly ignoble place. It has not really grown all that much worse but appears to have done so because we know so much more about it than we did.
QUENTIN CRISP

Appear Done Grown Ignoble Much Now Place Really Seem Stunningly Word
The 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.
QUENTIN CRISP

Always Conform Problem Rebel Same Time Young
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
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

Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Quentin Crisp Quotes