Quote

You focus on the here and now in order to escape existence forever and vanish into Nirvana. There is another religious impulse that is the opposite of this. It uses a world elsewhere in order to affirm life and give a reason to go forth and multiply.

Quentin S. Crisp

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Quentin S. Crisp
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: January 1
Writer
Devonshire
World
Religious
Impulse
Use
Escape
Another
Forth
Multiply
Order
Opposite
Nirvana
Give
Opposites
Vanish
Reason
Focus
Affirm
Giving
Existence
Uses
Life
Forever
Elsewhere

More quotes by Quentin S. Crisp

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My muse can take the form of a landscape, an era, a style of writing, a piece of music, and, perhaps that which I find strangest of all for a muse, a human female. Of course, she's also adept at taking the form of toothless old Japanese men or young English lads with tattoos.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I understand that words can mean different things to different people, and, further, that people can have different relationships with complex abstract entities such as Buddhism. To me, anyway, the entity in my life that conflicts with my creativity is Buddhism.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I'm not an expert here. I'm talking about an experience I had rather than something I intellectually worked out. From what I can gather, the original mystery religions are still, largely, as the name suggests, mysterious. But they are associated with intoxication, fertility and resurrection.
Quentin S. Crisp
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We all know about the car breaking down on a deserted road scenario. That's cliché. I'm thinking more of Cider with Rosie, as in, the dark side.
Quentin S. Crisp
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The quality of that 'who I am', is what I hope comes out in the writing.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I grew up with tarot cards and the reading of tea leaves.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I'm not claiming anything like sainthood - merely a native perception.
Quentin S. Crisp
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There's a possible qualification I can make here about a non-pantheist god that is in some way tenable, and that is the idea of a god that has in some way discharged the universe from its own substance (I associate this with the word 'tzimtzum'), possibly even by a form of suicide - a suicide that might have been the Big Bang.
Quentin S. Crisp
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It would be hard to say that exactly, but antinatalism is a reality in my life, not just an interesting idea. I can feel it in the chilled and weary marrow of my bones.
Quentin S. Crisp
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It's true that Eastern philosophy and religion were not unknown to me as a child, since my father has explored much in that area, and written books more or less in that area, too.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I have a bit of a struggle with some aspects of or forms of Buddhism, but Zen I find to be mainly congenial.
Quentin S. Crisp
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Apart from the underlying mystery of all things, there is also another possible specific mystery in this situation: Why did I become so interested in Buddhism, Zen and so on? I seem to have a Buddhist voice in my head, and someone asked me about this recently, saying he was intrigued.
Quentin S. Crisp
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In the meditation, of course, the question is repeated and repeated until you run out of answers - or so I hear.
Quentin S. Crisp
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Some Buddhists, however, never seem to get past the void, and I suppose I view this as a kind of Buddhist 'Old Testament' that I don't especially like.
Quentin S. Crisp
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The imagination is fertile. From seeds of the imagination, much is made manifest.
Quentin S. Crisp
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When we fail to live up to our ideals, for instance, we might begin to wonder who we are - most people are aware of a discrepancy, I think. There are idiosyncrasies and foibles, but we're not sure if these are essential. Some people think they are the most essential things of all.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I have a sense of them being Easter religions, for some reason. Christianity, of course, is a mystery religion, too, and I believe that Arthur Machen was one of those especially interested in the link between the pagan mysteries and the Christian ones. So, my experience was also a Machenesque experience.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I like the concept of an anti-muse, though I'm not quite sure what that is. If there is such a thing in my life, I suppose it is just this weariness, this sense that it is more fulfilling not to exist, to efface all traces, than to limit oneself to the determined expression of manifestation.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I really think [William] Burroughs was onto something here, when he said, Dreams are a biologic necessity and your lifeline into space.
Quentin S. Crisp
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I associate my childhood with two things, mainly: the North Devon countryside and a sense of connection to another world.
Quentin S. Crisp