Quentin Crisp Quotes

Flowers are words even a baby can understand. ~ Quentin Crisp

If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being. ~ Quentin Crisp

[Sex] is only a mirage, floating in shimmering mockery before the bulging eyes of middle-aged men as they stumble with little whimpers toward the double bed, that somewhere there is a person that will evoke from them sensations of which they dimly dream they are capable. ~ Quentin Crisp

The trouble with children is that they're not returnable. ~ Quentin Crisp

I started to shed the monstrous aesthetic affectation of my youth so as to make room for the monstrous philistine postures of middle age, but it was some years before I was bold enough to decline an invitation to "Hamlet" on the grounds that I knew who won. ~ Quentin Crisp

One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend. ~ Quentin Crisp

I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned. ~ Quentin Crisp

As soon as I put my uniform on, the rest of my life solidified around me like a plaster cast. From that moment on, my friends were anyone who could put up with the disgrace; my occupation, any job from which I was not given the sack; my playground, any cafe or restaurant from which I was not barred or any street corner from which the police did not move me on. ~ Quentin Crisp

To say a thing is natural is to condone it, never to praise it. ~ Quentin Crisp

It was not so much that I longed for death as that I didn't long for life. ~ Quentin Crisp

Other-cheekism is not only a way of purifying the soul, it is also part of every weak person's survival kit. ~ Quentin Crisp

Los Angeles is just New York lying down. ~ Quentin Crisp

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

I lost the love of all the homosexuals in the world by saying that Princess Diana was trash and got what she deserved. She could have been Queen of England - and she was swanning about Paris with Arabs. What disgraceful behavior. Going about saying she wanted to be the queen of hearts. The vulgarity of it is so overpowering. ~ Quentin Crisp

I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share ~ Quentin Crisp

The simplest comment on my book came from my ballet teacher. She said, I wish you hadn't made every line funny. It's so depressing. ~ Quentin Crisp

Among other objections to the image of me was that I hated animals. I still do. I have enough dumb friends without them. ~ Quentin Crisp

I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay! ~ Quentin Crisp

Another friend began to say, "Well, Quentin has a problem of adjusting himself to society and he ... " This sentence was never finished. The ballet teacher expostulated, "I don't agree. Quentin does exactly as he pleases. The rest of us have to adapt ourselves to him." ~ Quentin Crisp

When a third wave of poverty overwhelmed me, I knew with even greater certitude than when I had lived in Clerkenwell that the only complete solution to my problem was suicide. I never brought it off. I was afraid. A lifetime of never making positive decisions, accepting instead the lesser of the evils presented to me, had atrophied my will. It was not so much that I longed for death as that I didn't long for life. Emptiness, though, was not a sufficiently definite feeling to lead to a violent act. Instead of sitting in my room and balancing the relative convenience of various ways of ending it all, I ought to have been busy trying to summon up a reasonable amount of despair. Hopelessness was thinly spread like drizzle over my whole outlook. But, in an emergency, I could not find a puddle of despondency deep enough to drown in. ~ Quentin Crisp

It is no longer possible to be exotic. ~ Quentin Crisp

The distinction between indoors and outdoors, which in England is usually so marked, was temporarily suspended in a hot gauzy haze. ~ Quentin Crisp

You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality. ~ Quentin Crisp

Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster. ~ Quentin Crisp

Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh. ~ Quentin Crisp

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

The monasteries of Bohemia demand more of their brotherhood than some are prepared to give. The daily routine of back-breaking idleness proves too much for certain novices. The self-inflicted orgies that are the inevitable punishment for the slightest deviation into the bourgeois way of life are more than their frail flesh can stand. Many discover to their shame that they have scruples; they have roots, and greatest disadvantage of all, they have hope ~ Quentin Crisp

The average woman, unless she is particularly ill-favored, regards loving and being loved as a normal part of life. If a man says he loves her she believes him. Indeed some women are convinced they are adored by men who can be seen by all to be running in the opposite direction. For homosexuals this is not so. Love and admiration have to be won against heavy odds. Any declaration of affection requires proof. So many approaches made to them are insincere - even hostile. What better proof of love can there be than money? A ten-shilling note showed incontrovertibly just how mad about you a man is. Even in the minds of some women a confusion exists between love and money if the quantity is large enough. They evade the charge of mercenariness by using the cash they extort from one man to deal a bludgeoning blow of humiliation upon another. Some homosexuals attempt this gambit, but it is risky. The giving of money is a masculine act and blurs the internal image. ~ Quentin Crisp

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. ~ Quentin Crisp

Never get involved with someone who wants to change you ~ Quentin Crisp

Mainstream people dislike homosexuality because they can't help concentrating on what homosexual men do to one another. And when you contemplate what people do, you think of yourself doing it. And they don't like that. That's the famous joke: 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

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. If you have no personality, you may be able to save your face and, possibly, your entire anatomy by following the current fashion, but all we shall know about you, when we see you coming down the street, is that you had enough money to buy a glossy magazine and were sufficiently cunning to work out the cut of the garments shown therein. ~ Quentin Crisp

Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation of which the filing system has been lost? ~ Quentin Crisp

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

Quentin Crisp said it to me; now I say it to you: say yes to everything. ~ Martin Firrell

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

Ask yourself, if there was to be no blame, and if there was to be no praise, who would I be then? ~ Quentin Crisp

One of the special beauties of America is that it is the only country in the world where you are not advised to learn the language before entering. Before I ever set out for the United States, I asked a friend if I should study American. His answer was unequivocal. "On no account," he said. "The more English you sound, the more likely you are to be believed." ~ Quentin Crisp

Development of character consists solely in moving towards self-sufficiency. ~ Quentin Crisp

The whole set of stylizations that are known as "camp" (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about "camp" is that it has been fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, "Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag. ~ Quentin Crisp

You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave. ~ Quentin Crisp

The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right. ~ Quentin Crisp

The idea that He would take his attention away from the universe in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds is just so unlikely I can't go along with it. ~ Quentin Crisp

Living en famille provides the strongest motives for rudeness combined with the maximum opportunity for displaying it. ~ Quentin Crisp

I found that I had become so spinsterish that I was made neurotic not only by my life of domesticity but by the slightest derangement of my room. I would burst into a fit of weeping if the kettle was not facing due east. ~ Quentin Crisp

It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom. ~ Quentin Crisp

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

Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine. ~ Quentin Crisp

In England, the system is benign and the people are hostile. In America, the people are friendlyand the system is brutal! ~ Quentin Crisp

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

Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave. ~ Quentin Crisp

Without knowing it, I was acquiring that haughty bearing which is characteristic of so many eccentrics. What other expression would you expect to find on the face of anyone who knows that if he turns his head too quickly, he will see on the faces of others glares of stark terror or grimaces of hatred? Aloofness is the posture of self-defense. ~ Quentin Crisp

The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress. ~ Quentin Crisp

To live in the past is to miss today's opportunities and tomorrow's blessings. ~ Quentin Crisp

I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. ~ Quentin Crisp

To lose is not always failure. ~ Quentin Crisp

Mass-murderers are simply people who have had ENOUGH. ~ Quentin Crisp

Mr Melly had to be obscene to be believed ~ Quentin Crisp

As soon as I stepped out of my mother's womb ... I realized that I had made a mistake, ~ Quentin Crisp

As a test of the closeness of your relationship with the world, sex could never be a patch on being murdered. (That's when someone really does risk his life for you.) ~ Quentin Crisp

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. ~ Quentin Crisp

The proprietor had hair so red that pigmentation had flowed out into every visible inch of his skin and even into the pinks of his eyes, as the colour of flowering cherry trees stains their leaves. ~ Quentin Crisp

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

All liaisons between homosexuals are conducted as though they were between a chorus girl and a bishop. In some cases both parties think they are bishops. ~ Quentin Crisp

I am unable to believe in a God susceptible to prayer. 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

In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor. ~ Quentin Crisp

Fear and hatred do not seem to find expression in tears. ~ Quentin Crisp

The English think that incompetence is the same thing as sincerity. ~ Quentin Crisp

The rest of the world in which I lived was still stumbling about in search of a weapon with which to exterminate this monster [homosexuality] whose shape and size were not yet known or even guessed at. It was thought to be Greek in origin, smaller than socialism but more deadly, especially to children. ~ Quentin Crisp

Fashion is a way of not having to decide who you are. Style is deciding who you are and being able to perpetuate it. ~ Quentin Crisp

Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep. ~ Quentin Crisp

As we all know from witnessing the consuming jealousy of husbands who are never faithful, people do not confine themselves to the emotions to which they are entitled. ~ Quentin Crisp

Then my hostess said, Oh, Denis (as my name was before I dyed it) never plays the part of a man. ~ Quentin Crisp

What is privacy if not for invading? ~ Quentin Crisp

The very purpose of existence it to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think of us. ~ Quentin Crisp

The continued propinquity of another human being cramps the style after a time unless that person is somebody you think you love. Then the burden becomes intolerable at once. ~ Quentin Crisp

Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne. ~ Quentin Crisp

So black was the way ahead that my progress consisted of long periods of inert despondency punctuated by spasmodic lurches forward towards any small chink of light that I thought I saw ... As the years went by, it did not get lighter but I became accustomed to the dark ~ Quentin Crisp

All the golden societies of the past to which historians point and turn their wistful smiles have had what patience-players would call a discard pile. They operated on two levels with a slave class who worked, ate, slept, and died and a leisured class who reclined on one elbow and spoke. Naturally it is from this latter group that we learn what life at that time was like. It often makes charming reading but we can hardly take it to be the whole truth. ~ Quentin Crisp

The place where no harm can come is the place where nothing at all can come. ~ Quentin Crisp

Nothing in our culture, not even home computers, is more overrated than the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress. ~ Quentin Crisp

I did not know that a reputation for wit is earned not by making jokes, but by laughing at the pleasantries of others. ~ Quentin Crisp

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over the fence on the other side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn, 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

A gentleman doesn't pounce he glides. If a woman sits on a piece of furniture which permits your sitting beside her, you are free to regard this as an invitation, though not an unequivocal one. ~ Quentin Crisp

My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it's a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That's a big step. Maybe without me, there wouldn't be Adam Lambert. Without Bowie, there wouldn't be me. Without Quentin Crisp, there wouldn't have been Bowie. So everything is part of a big daisy chain. ~ Boy George

Quentin Crisp (to handsome young man on the street): What's the matter, sexy? Don't you like dehydrated fruit? ~ Quentin Crisp

Michelangelo worked from within. He described not the excitements of touching or seeing a man but the excitement of being Man. ~ Quentin Crisp

Any film is at least better than real life. ~ Quentin Crisp

I have come to think that both sex and politics are a mistake and that any attempt to establish a connection between the two is the greatest error of all. ~ Quentin Crisp

Whatever has gone on in the outer world has passed me by. But I think if anyone said to me, 'if you go on like this life will pass you by,' I would reply, 'thank God for that, I nearly got mixed up in the beastly thing. ~ Quentin Crisp

A fair share of anything is starvation diet to an egomaniac. ~ Quentin Crisp

In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis. ~ Quentin Crisp

No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else. ~ Quentin Crisp

If sophistication is a matter of being in control of our primary reactions, we may now be sophisticated. At least we shall be fairly confident of ourselves and may, with any luck, be confident of others. Our object will be to enjoy our selves. But to make sure that our names are permanently on the cast list, it will be advisable to be of interest to others. This aim must never be confused with the desire to be popular. ~ Quentin Crisp

The absolute nothingness of death is a blessing. Something to look forward to. ~ Quentin Crisp

If you truly love me, kill the bartender. ~ Quentin Crisp

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

If one is not going to take the necessary precautions to avoid having parents, one must undertake to bring them up. ~ Quentin Crisp

You first have to find who you are. Then, you have to be it like mad. ~ Quentin Crisp

It is hard enough to share wealth without being involved in undignified scenes; shared poverty consists of nothing else. ~ Quentin Crisp