272 Quotes by Quentin Crisp

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.

You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.

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.

Whenever we confront an unbridled desire we are surely in the presence of a tragedy-in-the-making.

One of the special beauties of America is that it is the only country in the world where you are not advised to learn the language before entering. Before I ever set out for the United States, I asked a friend if I should study American. His answer was unequivocal. "On no account," he said. "The more English you sound, the more likely you are to be believed."

A fair share of anything is starvation diet to an egomaniac.

I now realize that education is a last wild effort on the part of the authorities to prevent an overdose of leisure from driving the world mad. Learning is no longer an improver; it is merely the most expensive time-filler the world has ever known.

Quentin Crisp (to handsome young man on the street): "What's the matter, sexy? Don't you like dehydrated fruit?

I became one of the stately homos of England.