Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp25 December 1908 – 21 November 1999) was an English writer and raconteur...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth25 December 1908
love running brave
Because it is in the nature of things that they become extreme, we have passed down from manliness to cruelty. If I had been told when I was 20 that there was a tavern in the town where the brave and the cruel were gathered together, I would have run all the way and I would have gone up to the largest and leatheriest of the denizens and said: If you truly love me, kill the bartender.
inspirational running years
It's 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.
african glass tears
Tears were to me what glass beads are to African traders.
dirt few
Don't do housework: after a few years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
complete love
Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.
basic block building course good lie lies-and-lying moralist mutual seem shocking
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?
coming interview stop
When coming to the end of an interview: 'You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality'.
drag english-writer
Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.
drag
Never keep up with Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.
bag difficult elephant hurt paper played playing stopped
I told Mr. Hurt it was difficult for actors to play victims, but he has specialized in victims. When he stopped playing me, he played Caligula, which was only me in a sheet. Then he played The Elephant Man, which was only me with a paper bag over my head.
disaster disasters treat
You should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster
clown country evening facts loathe love rejection speaks truth whipped
It is not a biopic; it is not a trawl through the facts of somebody's life. It is more an evening with a Shakespearean clown who speaks the truth and was whipped for his pains. Writing the play made me love and loathe my country more: love it that it could create, and has always created, one-offs like Quentin; loathe it for its rejection of him.
funny grave life occurred
Life was a funny thing that occurred on the way to the grave
english sincerity
The English think incompetence is the same thing as sincerity