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
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
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
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
History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? – Washington Irving, The Sketch Book: Westminster Abbey