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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?

Quentin Crisp

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Quentin Crisp
Age: 90 †
Born: 1908
Born: December 25
Died: 1999
Died: November 21
Actor
Autobiographer
Film Actor
Graphic Designer
Model
Socialite
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Writer
Sutton
London
Daniel Pratt
Denis Charles Pratt
Lying
Mutual
Seems
Manners
Block
May
Basic
Good
Seem
People
Building
Mildly
Courses
Moralist
Course
Shocking

More quotes by Quentin Crisp

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There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.
Quentin Crisp
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That's the only sense in which I've been lucky: I have the kind of face to which cosmetics could be applied.
Quentin Crisp
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Charisma is the ability to influence without logic.
Quentin Crisp
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When asked, 'Shall I tell my mother I'm gay?', I reply, 'Never tell your mother anything.
Quentin Crisp
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Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
Quentin Crisp
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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.
Quentin Crisp
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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.
Quentin Crisp
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To say a thing is natural is to condone it, never to praise it.
Quentin Crisp
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No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.
Quentin Crisp
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I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay!
Quentin Crisp
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This woman did not fly to extremes she lived there.
Quentin Crisp
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I don't think I have a tragic demeanor.
Quentin Crisp
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Nearly always when actors are approached by the beauticians, they try to avoid the dabs that the beauticians put on their faces. They dodge them.
Quentin Crisp
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Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.
Quentin Crisp
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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.
Quentin Crisp
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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?'
Quentin Crisp
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Exhibitionism is like a drug. Hooked in adolescence I was now taking doses so massive they would have killed a novice.
Quentin Crisp
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England is very dreary, but I'm a people person.
Quentin Crisp
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However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
Quentin Crisp
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What matters is not whether you put your fork or knife together because you've finished your meal, or something like that. What matters is that you don't offend people, or hurt their feelings by mistake by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing.
Quentin Crisp