Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps. – Quentin Crisp
A gentleman doesnt 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
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
I recommend limiting ones involvement in other peoples 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 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
This woman did not fly to extremes; she lived there. – Quentin Crisp
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 cant think what to do with the long winter evenings. – Quentin Crisp
Health consists of having the same diseases as ones neighbors. – Quentin Crisp
Its no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer. By then, pigs will be your style. – 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 dont believe? – Quentin Crisp
If at first you dont succeed, failure may be your style. – Quentin Crisp
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. – Quentin Crisp
Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses. – 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 consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. – Quentin Crisp
Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave. – 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
Manners are love in a cool climate. – Quentin Crisp
For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change. – Quentin Crisp
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
