“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.”
— Quentin Crisp
Happiness
“It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.”
— Quentin Crisp
Good
“It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.”
— Quentin Crisp
Freedom
“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.”
— Quentin Crisp
Happiness
“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
Money
“If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.”
— Quentin Crisp
Failure
“The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.”
— Quentin Crisp
Relationship
“My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.”
— Quentin Crisp
Parenting
“Men get laid, but women get screwed.”
— Quentin Crisp
Women
“Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.”
— Quentin Crisp
Intelligence
“Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.”
— Quentin Crisp
Health
“Manners are love in a cool climate.”
— Quentin Crisp
Cool
“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
God
“Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.”
— Quentin Crisp
Funny
“For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.”
— Quentin Crisp
Change