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I came first to America in 1977 at the invitation of a man who wanted to make my life story into a musical. But my agent said it was not to be and it was never done. So I went back, but I'd seen New York, and I wanted to live there. Because everybody talks to you in the street. See, nobody talks to you in England.

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
Life
Wanted
Went
Agent
Live
Seen
Agents
Firsts
Everybody
Street
First
Came
Musical
Done
Story
England
Make
Stories
York
Invitation
Never
America
Streets
Invitations
Men
Back
Nobody
Talks

More quotes by Quentin Crisp

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Never get involved with someone who wants to change you
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The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
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Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
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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!
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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.
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You can't be a person and a lady. If you're a person, you can open the damned door yourself.
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Europeans are quarrelsome.
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For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.
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The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.
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I don't believe in convention at all. I do what I have to do to stay alive.
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I am the last of Britain's stately homos.
Quentin Crisp
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The rest of the world in which I lived was still stumbling about in search of a weapon with which to exterminate this monster [homosexuality] whose shape and size were not yet known or even guessed at. It was thought to be Greek in origin, smaller than socialism but more deadly, especially to children.
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You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
Quentin Crisp
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The key is never, never work. Nothing is more aging than work. It's not only the strain of getting up in the morning for work, but it's the resentment that settles on your face
Quentin Crisp
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The programs constantly repeat themselves and one another. No one has yet had the nerve to say, 'As we have nothing sensible to tell you between now and 8:30, please tune in again then.
Quentin Crisp
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Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.
Quentin Crisp
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In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.
Quentin Crisp
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When asked to give advice, I do of course give it, because I give whatever I am asked to give.
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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I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.
Quentin Crisp