Quentin Crisp

Never sweep. After four years the dirt gets no worse.

Any film is at least better than real life.

Politics are not an instrument for effecting social change; they are the art of making the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice.

The English think that incompetence is the same thing as sincerity.

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.

Ask yourself, if there was to be no blame, and if there was to be no praise, who would I be then?

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them. If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who...have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.

Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.

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.

Sex is the last refuge of the miserable.

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

Another friend began to say, \'Well, Quentin has a problem of adjusting himself to society and he...\' This sentence was never finished. The ballet teacher expostulated, \'I don't agree. Quentin does exactly as he pleases. The rest of us have to adapt ourselves to him.\'

Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.

Never get involved with someone who wants to change you

The ... problem that confronts homosexuals is that they set out to win the love of a \'real\' man. If they succeed, they fail. A man who \'goes with\' other men is not what they would call a real man. The conundrum is incapable of resolution, but that does not make homosexuals give it up.

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

The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call 'the trouble with you.Ђќ Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.

I learned very early in life that I was always going to need people more than they needed me

Mainstream people dislike homosexuality because they can't help concentrating on what homosexual men do to one another. And when you contemplate what people do, you think of yourself doing it. And they don't like that. That's the famous joke: I don't like peas, and I'm glad I don't like them, because if I liked them I would eat them and I hate them.

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

I don't think you can really be proud of being gay because it isn't something you've done. You can only be proud of not being ashamed.

In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast.

For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.

If you truly love me, kill the bartender.

Charisma is the ability to influence without logic.

Bit by bit, I was becoming the almost acceptable face of homosexuality.

Even a monotonously undeviating path of self-examination does not necessarily lead to self-knowledge. I stumble towards my grave confused and hurt and hungry.

Mass-murderers are simply people who have had ENOUGH.

I never understood music. It seemed to me to be the maximum amount of noise conveying the minimum amount of information.