Quentin Crisp Quotes

11 quotations by Quentin Crisp

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

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

Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.

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

Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery Phooey You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say 'Phooey,' too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed.

Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.

Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.