Quentin Crisp Quotes

Men get laid, but women get screwed.

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?

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

Never get involved with someone who wants to change you.

Vice is its own reward.

The war between the sexes is the only one in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.

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.

The curiosity of the neighbors about you, is a tribute to your individuality, and you should encourage it.

Never keep up with Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.

This woman did not fly to extremes; she lived there.

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?

Los Angeles is just New York lying down.

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

The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen.

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.

Life was a funny thing that occurred on the way to the grave.

If I were asked to describe the difference between the sexes in the gay world, I would say that the men wanted to be amused; the girls sought vindication.

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

Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head.

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.

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

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.

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

Sex is the last refuge of the miserable.

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.