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I Don't Hold With Abroad And Think That Foreigners Speak English When Our Backs Are Turned.
-Quentin Crisp
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I Don't Hold With

Quentin Crisp
...
I Don't Hold With Abroad And Think That Foreigners Speak English When Our Backs Are Turned.

Understanding the Quote: "i don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak english when..."

This quote by Quentin Crisp reflects deeply on the theme of thinking. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Thinking, Speak English, Speak, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Quentin Crisp interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp is celebrated for insightful thoughts on thinking and speak english. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Thinking
Speak English
Speak
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It May Be True That Artists Adopt A Flamboyant Appearance, But It's Also True That People Who Look Funny Get Stuck With The Arts.
Art
People
Looks
I Recommend Limiting One's Involvement In Other People's Lives To A Pleasantly Scant Minimum.
People
Involvement
Minimum
There Is No Need To Do Any Housework At All. After The First Four Years The Dirt Doesn't Get Any Worse.
Funny
Kids
Years
As We All Know From Witnessing The Consuming Jealousy Of Husbands Who Are Never Faithful, People Do Not Confine Themselves To The Emotions To Which They Are Entitled.
Marriage
Husband
People
The Measure Of Woman's Distaste For Any Part Of Her Life Lies Not In The Loudness Of Her Lamentations (these Are Only An Attempt To Buy A Martyr's Crown At A Reduced Price) But In Her Persistent Pursuit Of That Occupation Of Which She Never Ceases To Complain.
Lying
Complaining
Crowns
What Would You Be Like If You Were The Only Person In The World? If You Want To Be Truly Happy You Must Be That Person.
Inspirational
Want
Lgbt
You Can't Be A Person And A Lady. If You're A Person, You Can Open The Damned Door Yourself.
Doors
Persons
Ifs
Love Is Not Enough. It Must Be The Foundation, The Cornerstone - But Not The Complete Structure. It Is Much Too Pliable, Too Yielding.
Love
Life
Foundation
Central Europe Is Full Of Little Countries Standing Shoulder To Shoulder With No Window To The Sea. They Are Like The Passengers In A Rush-hour Train Which Has Stopped Between Stations For Three Centuries. And They All Hate One Another. And They're All Crushed Together Waving Their National Flags, Clanking Their National Chains, Jabbering Their National Language.
Country
Hate
Europe
You Don't Have To Do Anything.
Keeping Up With The Joneses Was A Full-time Job With My Mother And Father. It Was Not Until Many Years Later When I Lived Alone That I Realized How Much Cheaper It Was To Drag The Joneses Down To My Level.
Funny
Mother
Jobs
When I Was Young, I Wanted To Find The Great Dark Man. When I Said That I Realise Now That People Thought That By 'dark' I Meant Black, And That By 'great' I Meant Big. Whereas I Only Meant A Strong, Mysterious Person; Someone Who Would 'take Me Away From All This.'
Strong
Dark
Men
Quentin Crisp (to Handsome Young Man On The Street): "what's The Matter, Sexy? Don't You Like Dehydrated Fruit?
Sexy
Men
Handsome
The Trouble With European Cities Is That They Are Drenched In Their History, Almost All Of Which Is Terrible.
Cities
Trouble
Terrible
England Is Very Dreary, But I'm A People Person.
People
England
Persons
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.
Relationship
Marriage
Successful
The Flagrantly Gay Quentin Crisp Dealt With Homophobic Bullying By Refusing To Bow To Its Onslaught. His Number Listed In The Phone Directory, He Responded To Derogatory Remarks Accompanied With A Stated Intent To Kill Him By Asking, "would You Like To Make An Appointment?"
Bullying
Gay
Phones
If A Man Were To Look Over The Fence On One Side Of His Garden And Observe That The Neighbor On His Left Had Laid His Garden Path Round A Central Lawn; And Were To Look Over The Fence On The Other Side Of His Garden And Observe That The Neighbor On His Right Had Laid His Path Down The Middle Of The Lawn, And Were Then To Lay His Own Garden Path Diagonally From One Corner To The Other, That Man's Soul Would Be Lost. Originality Is Only To Be Praised When Not Prefaced By The Look To Right And Left.
Men
Garden
Soul
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.
Mad
Effort
World
The Very Purpose Of Existence Is To Reconcile The Glowing Opinion We Hold Of Ourselves With The Appalling Things That Other People Think About Us.
Forgiveness
Hilarious
Thinking
If Love Means Anything At All It Means Extending Your Hand To The Unlovable.
Mean
Hands
Ifs
I Have To Work In England, But Here In America You Don't Have To Work. You Can Sort Of Enter The Profession Of Being.
America
England
Profession
I'm Happy. I Don't Ever Have To Pay Anything, And I Don't Ever Have To Wash The Dishes, And I Don't Ever Have To Behave Nicely.
Pay
Dishes
Behave
I Never Say 'no' To Anything.
Why Get Married? For Human Beings, Marriage Is Such An Unnatural State. If You Want Monogamy, It Has Been Said, You Should Marry A Swan.
Marriage
Swans
Want
I've Always Lived In The Same Way.
Way
I Had A Friend Who Had Two Degrees Of Being Made Up: When Invited I Would Say 'can I Make Up?' And He Would Say 'oh Yes - Tinted?', Or He Would Say, 'oh Yes - Clotted?'
Two
Degrees
Made
In An Expanding Universe, Time Is On The Side Of The Outcast. Those Who Once Inhabited The Suburbs Of Human Contempt Find That Without Changing Their Address They Eventually Live In The Metropolis.
Expanding Universe
Addresses
Sides
You See, Astrology Is Like Fortune-telling. If You Can't Get It Right, You Say, "well, If Venus Was Doing Something Peculiar In The Background, That Would Alter Your Prognostication--because, Of Course, Astrology Is Rubbish.
Astrology
Peculiar
Venus
If Sophistication Is A Matter Of Being In Control Of Our Primary Reactions, We May Now Be Sophisticated. At Least We Shall Be Fairly Confident Of Ourselves And May, With Any Luck, Be Confident Of Others. Our Object Will Be To Enjoy Our Selves. But To Make Sure That Our Names Are Permanently On The Cast List, It Will Be Advisable To Be Of Interest To Others. This Aim Must Never Be Confused With The Desire To Be Popular.
Confused
Self
Names
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.
Success
Moving
Character
No Effort Is Required To Define Or Even Attain Happiness, But Enormous Concentration Is Needed To Abandon Everything Else.
Happiness
Effort
Enormous
I Recommend Limiting One's Involvement In Other People's Lives To A Pleasantly Scant Minimum. This May Seem Too Stoical A Position In These Madly Passionate Times, But Madly Passionate People Rarely Make Good On Their Madly Passionate Promises.
People
Promise
Passionate
You Must Stop This Interview Now As I Have Come To End Of My Personality.
Personality
Interviews
Ends
I Don't Think I Have A Tragic Demeanor.
Thinking
Tragic
Demeanor
The United States Are A Miracle: The Division Between Two States Is Sometimes A River Or A Mountain, And Sometimes It's A Straight Line. But Nobody Says, "that Tree Really Belongs In South Carolina. I Shan't Do Anything About It Now, I'll Get It Back Later." I Shall Go After I Am Here To London And After That To Potsdam, Where Comrade Stalin, Mr Churchill And Harry Truman Divided Up Europe; And What We See Now Is The Result Of That. The Americans Would Have Accepted It. But Europeans Don't Accept Anything.
Europe
Two
Rivers
For An Introvert His Environment Is Himself And Can Never Be Subject To Startling Or Unforeseen Change.
Change
Art
Introvert
The Simplest Comment On My Book Came From My Ballet Teacher. She Said, "i Wish You Hadn't Made Every Line Funny. It's So Depressing."
Teacher
Depressing
Book
I Take It To Be Axiomatic That People Are Revolted By Witnessing The Shameless Gratification Of An Appetite They Do Not Share.
People
Shameless
Share
I Can't Remember Ever Having A Tragic Demeanor. Although My Life Was Tragedy.
Tragedy
Remember
Tragic
Every Day Someone Notices Me And Waves To Me, Or Stops And Speaks To Me, Or Asks Me For An Autograph, Or Photographs Me.
Speak
Wave
Photograph
My Mother Protected Me From The World And My Father Threatened Me With It.
Fathers Day
Mother
Dad
It Is Explained That All Relationships Require A Little Give And Take. This Is Untrue. Any Partnership Demands That We Give And Give And Give And At The Last, As We Flop Into Our Graves Exhausted, We Are Told That We Didn't Give Enough.
Relationship
Giving
Demand
Flowers Are Words Even A Baby Can Understand.
Baby
Flower
When Asked, 'shall I Tell My Mother I'm Gay?', I Reply, 'never Tell Your Mother Anything.
Mother
Gay
Sometimes I Wore A Fringe So Deep It Obscured The Way Ahead. This Hardly Mattered. There Were Always Others To Look Where I Was Going.
Looks
Way
Sometimes
I Never Spend My Time Doing Anything I'll Have To Do Again Tomorrow.
Tomorrow
My Time
It Is True That In America I've Become A National Hero, But Really I Was A Hopeless Case, That Was All.
Hero
America
Hopeless
The Gymnasiacs Of Venice, In California, Are So Addicted To These Practices That There Has Arisen A Nation Of Men Who Can No Longer Put Their Arms Against Their Sides
Men
Practice
California
In New York, I Find People So Courteous And So Generous. Free Drinks In Bars. Free Taxi Rides.
New York
People
Bars
Euphemisms Are Unpleasant Truths Wearing Diplomatic Cologne.
Truth
Communication
Diplomatic Relations
Everybody Who's Been On Television More Than Once Wears In Public An Expression Of Fatuous Affability. Because You May Be Addressed At Any Moment By Somebody.
Expression
Television
May
What I Wanted Most Of All Was To Use Sex As A Weapon To Allure, Subjugate, And, If Possible, Destroy The Personality Of Others.
Sex
Personality
Use
You Can Behave As Badly As You Like In America. Nobody Notices.
America
Behave
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.
Trying
Faces
Dodge
Manners Are Love In A Cool Climate.
Love
Inspirational
Climate
Nothing Shortens A Journey So Pleasantly As An Account Of Misfortunes At Which The Hearer Is Permitted To Laugh.
Journey
Laughing
Accounts
All Liaisons Between Homosexuals Are Conducted As Though They Were Between A Chorus Girl And A Bishop. In Some Cases Both Parties Think They Are Bishops.
Girl
Party
Thinking
In Most Cases An Act Of Unwelcome Sex Is No More Bother Than Being Vaccinated, So There's No Point Going On About It As If It Werea Fate Worse Than Death. With Skill And Good Manners You Can Avoid Having To Make The Sacrifice, But Should You Find Yourself In A Compromising Situation Largely Of Your Own Making, You Should Stop Defending Your Virtue And Start Worrying About Your Maturity. It Will Give You Something To Think About While The Savage Pumper Bangs Away.
Sex
Fate
Sacrifice
I Never Miss England.
Missing
England
Mainstream People Dislike Homosexuality Because They Can't Help Concentrating On What Homosexual Men Do To One Another. And When You Contemplate What People Do, You Think Of Yourself Doing It. And They Don't Like That. That's The Famous Joke: I Don't Like Peas, And I'm Glad I Don't Like Them, Because If I Liked Them I Would Eat Them And I Hate Them.
Hate
Men
Thinking
In Manhattan, When You're Out Of The Front Door, You're On, And You Have To Be Ready To Smile And Speak To People.
Doors
People
Manhattan
I Never Understood Music. It Seemed To Me To Be The Maximum Amount Of Noise Conveying The Minimum Amount Of Information.
Noise
Information
Minimum
Though Intelligence Is Powerless To Modify Character, It Is A Dab Hand At Finding Euphemisms For Its Weaknesses.
Character
Power
Hands
Never Keep Up With The Joneses. Drag Them Down To Your Level.
Inspirational
Levels
Dignity
I Have Known Female Whores Who Spoke Very Bitterly Of Their Calling. "if They Don't Like My Face, They Can Put A Cushion Over It. I Know It's Not That They're Interested In." But To The Boys This Profession Never Seemed Shameful. It Was Their Daytime Occupations For Which They Felt The Need To Apologize. In Some Instances, These Were Lower Class Or Humdrum Or, Worst Of All, Unfeminine. At Least Whoring Was Never That.
Boys
Class
Faces
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.
God
Order
Giving
Vienna Is Cold, And Dark, And Sad. It Is Laid Out As Though For A Royal Parade; The Streets Are Wide And They're Flanked By Monumental Buildings, Decorated With The Faces Of Angry Gods. And On The Roof Are Statues Of National Heroes, Wielding Weapons Of Destruction.
Hero
Dark
Vienna
In Fact I Try To Spend At Least One, If Not Two Days Without Ever Leaving My Room. Because If I Didn't, When Would I Recharge My Batteries?
Two
Leaving
Trying
Most Men When They Make Up Their Faces, The Makeup Stands Forward, And Their Faces Are Behind.
Makeup
Men
Faces
One Should Always Be Wary Of Anyone Who Promises That Their Love Will Last Longer Than A Weekend.
Love
Weekend
Promise
My Function In Life Was To Render Clear What Was Already Blindingly Conspicuous.
Function
Clear
Believe In Fate, But Lean Forward Where Fate Can See You.
Believe
Fate
Choices
Vice Is Its Own Reward. It Is Virtue Which, If It Is To Be Marketed With Consumer Appeal, Must Carry Green Shield Stamps.
Inspirational
Vices
Green
The Idea That He Would Take His Attention Away From The Universe In Order To Give Me A Bicycle With Three Speeds Is Just So Unlikely I Can't Go Along With It.
Order
Ideas
Giving
Charisma Is The Ability To Influence Without Logic.
Logic
Influence
Charisma
Many [hooligans] Discover To Their Shame That They Have Scruples; They Have Roots And, Greatest Disadvantage Of All, They Have Hope. The Fathers Superior Of The Order Do Not Try To Influence Their Children In Satan; They Merely Shake Their Heads In Sorrow. They Know That The Apostate Must Work Out His Own Damnation.
Children
Father
Order
You Don't Have To Deal With Anyone In America. They Accept You The Way You Are.
America
Way
Accepting
Fear And Hatred Do Not Seem To Find Expression In Tears.
Expression
Hatred
Tears
The Worst Part Of Being Gay In The Twentieth Century Is All That Damn Disco Music To Which One Has To Listen.
Gay
Disco Music
Century
I Am Asked How To Remain Young, And I Say 'never, Never Work.' And That, Of Course, Is The Secret Of It.
Secret
Young
Courses
Because It Is In The Nature Of Things That They Become Extreme, We Have Passed Down From Manliness To Cruelty. If I Had Been Told When I Was 20 That There Was A Tavern In The Town Where The Brave And The Cruel Were Gathered Together, I Would Have Run All The Way And I Would Have Gone Up To The Largest And Leatheriest Of The Denizens And Said: If You Truly Love Me, Kill The Bartender.
Love
Running
Brave
If I Have Any Talent At All, It Is Not For Doing But For Being.
Talent
Ifs
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.
Real
Emotional
Self
It's A Strange Situation, But People Will Pay Your Fare To Get You To Go And Tell Them How To Be Happy.
People
Pay
Strange
Exhibitionists Have No Friends, No Friends At All.
No Friends
Exhibitionist
What Better Proof Of Love Can There Be Than Money? A Ten-shilling Note Shows Incontrovertibly Just How Mad About You A Man Is.
Love
Men
Mad
The Search For A Life-style Involves A Journey To The Interior. This Is Not Altogether A Pleasant Experience, Because You Not Only Have To Take Stock Of What You Consider Your Assets But You Also Have To Take A Long Look At What Your Friends Call “the Trouble With You.” Nevertheless, The Journey Is Worth Making.
Journey
Long
Style
A Fair Share Of Anything Is Starvation Diet To An Egomaniac.
Egomaniacs
Share
Starvation
As A Test Of The Closeness Of Your Relationship With The World, Sex Could Never Be A Patch On Being Murdered. (that's When Someone Really Does Risk His Life For You.)
Sex
Risk
Doe
To Lose Is Not Always Failure.
Loses
I'm Too Old To Make Drawings.
Drawing
I Never Saw Portsmouth By Day.
Saws
Portsmouth
To Live In The Past Is To Miss Today's Opportunities And Tomorrow's Blessings.
Blessing
Past
Opportunity
If Mr. Vincent Price Were To Be Co-starred With Miss Bette Davis In A Story By Mr. Edgar Allan Poe Directed By Mr. Roger Corman, It Could Not Fully Express The Pent-up Violence And Depravity Of A Single Day In The Life Of The Average Family.
Family
Average
Missing
The English Think That Incompetence Is The Same Thing As Sincerity.
Thinking
Insulting
Religion
Nowadays People Don't Use Face Powder; They Say It Dries The Skin. But I Makeup In The Old-fashioned Way.
Makeup
People
Skins
I Asked A Girl Who Came From America To England, When I Was Only English, And She Admitted She Had Been To A Drama School. And I Said, "what Did They Teach You?" And She Said, "they Taught Me To Be A Candle Burning In An Empty Room." I'm Happy To Say She Was Laughing While She Said It, But She Meant It. I've Never Learned To Be A Candle Burning In An Empty Room. So I Go On The Screen, And I Say Whatever I'm Told To Say.
Girl
Drama
School
The Curiosity Of The Neighbors About You, Is A Tribute To Your Individuality, And You Should Encourage It
Individuality
Curiosity
Neighbor
You Will Survive If You Believe In Yourself.
Believe
Ifs
Believe In Yourself
Nothing More Rapidly Inclines A Person To Go Into A Monastery Than Reading A Book On Etiquette. There Are So Many Trivial Ways In Which It Is Possible To Commit Some Social Sin.
Book
Reading
Way
All America Is Much The Same.
America
Vice Is Its Own Reward.
Vices
Rewards
Virtue
If At First You Don't Succeed, Failure May Be Your Style.
Funny
Success
Sarcastic
In Manhattan, Every Flat Surface Is A Potential Stage And Every Inattentive Waiter An Unemployed, Possibly Unemployable, Actor.
Manhattan
Actors
Surface
I Go Wherever My Fare Is Paid.
Paid
As Far As I Know, You Can Fancy Someone, You Can Enjoy Their Company Or You Can Wish Them Well. But What Being In Love Is, I Don't Know.
Being In Love
Love Is
Wish
You Fall Out Of Your Mother's Womb, You Crawl Across Open Country Under Fire, And Drop Into Your Grave.
Love
Life
Relationship
God Is So Angry. All That Power, And So Mean With It.
Mean
Angry
I Don't Really Act. I Say The Words The Way I Would Say Them If I Meant Them.
Way
Ifs
Fashion Is What You Adopt When You Don't Know Who You Are.
Sad
Fashion
Being Yourself
Any Film Is At Least Better Than Real Life.
Real
Real Life
Film
I've Never Not Been Famous.
Another Friend Began To Say, "well, Quentin Has A Problem Of Adjusting Himself To Society And He..." This Sentence Was Never Finished. The Ballet Teacher Expostulated, "i Don't Agree. Quentin Does Exactly As He Pleases. The Rest Of Us Have To Adapt Ourselves To Him."
Teacher
Ballet
Doe
The Happiest Moments In Any Affair Take Place After The Loved One Has Learned To Accommodate The Lover And Before The Maddening Personality Of Either Party Has Emerged Like A Jagged Rock From The Receding Tides Of Lust And Curiosity.
Love
Party
Rocks
To Say A Thing Is Natural Is To Condone It, Never To Praise It.
Statistics
Praise
Natural
Development Of Character Consists Solely In Moving Toward Self-sufficiency.
Moving
Character
Self
Assoon As I Stepped Out Of My Mother's Womb On To Dry Land, I Realized That I Had Made A Mistake?but The Trouble With Children Is That They Are Not Returnable.
Mother
Children
Mistake
To My Disappointment I Now Realized That To Know All Is Not To Forgive All. It Is To Despise Everybody.
Forgiving
Despise
Knows
I've Come From A Very Masculine Country To A Feminine Country. England Was Very Masculine; People Went From England To Abroad, And They Landed From Above And They Said "these Are The Gods You Will Worship, These Are The Crops You Will Grow, Now Go Away And Do It." Which Is A Manly Attitude. Americans Go Abroad And They Say, "try Not To Quarrel So Much", Which Is A Feminine Attitude.
Country
Attitude
People
Never Sweep. After Four Years The Dirt Gets No Worse.
Years
Four
Four Years
Did You Know That Allah Promises You A Seat In Paradise If You Kill A Christian?
Christian
Promise
Paradise
I Went Out Into The World When I Was About 22. I Wrote Books And I Illustrated Books And Did Book Covers, And I Taught Tap-dancing, And I Was A Model In The Art School. I Had No Ability For Any Of Those Things, But What Else Could I Do?
Art
Book
School
Politics Are Not An Instrument For Effecting Social Change; They Are The Art Of Making The Inevitable Appear To Be A Matter Of Wise Human Choice.
Wise
Art
Choices
I Don't Hold With Abroad And Think That Foreigners Speak English When Our Backs Are Turned.
Thinking
Speak English
Speak
It's Been Agony But I Couldn't Have Done It Any Other Way.
Agony
Done
Way
If I Were God - And I Never Understand Why I'm Not - I Should Say, "shop Around, I Don't Think You'll Find A Better Bargain Than Here."
Thinking
Should
Shops
The More People One Has To Love, The More One's Capacity To Love Stretches.
Capacity To Love
People
Capacity
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!
Talking
Sitting
Pay
People Say To Me, "when Did You Come Out?" But I Was Never In! When I Was About Six, I Was Swanning Around The House In Clothes That Belonged To My Mother And My Grandmother Which I'd Found In An Attic, Saying, "i Am A Beautiful Princess!" What My Parents Thought Of This, I Don't Know. But They Bore It. And The Real Problem Was Not My Sin, But My Unemployability.
Beautiful
Mother
Real
To Love Another Person You Have To Undertake Some Fragment Of Their Destiny.
Love
Destiny
Extra Effort
I Was Beaten Up Wherever I Went, And People Shouted At Me And Cursed Me And Threw Things At Me.
People
Beaten
Cursed
An Autobiography Is An Obituary In Serial Form With The Last Installment Missing.
Funny
Missing
Lasts
Decency Must Be An Even More Exhausting State To Maintain Than Its Opposite. Those Who Succeed Seem To Need A Stupefying Amount Of Sleep.
Sleep
Opposites
Needs
The Scots Are Very Hospitable; Almost As Hospitable As The Americans.
Scots
In England, The System Is Benign And The People Are Hostile. In America, The People Are Friendlyand The System Is Brutal!
America
People
England
Manners Are A Way Of Getting What You Want Without Appearing To Be An Absolute Swine.
Humor
Getting What You Want
Way
Los Angeles Is Just New York Lying Down.
New York
Lying
Los Angeles
Europeans Are Quarrelsome.
Posing Was The First Job I Did In Which I Understood What I Was Doing.
Jobs
Firsts
Posing
Men Get Laid, But Women Get Screwed.
Sex
Women
Sassy
While I Have Very Little To Say In Favor Of Sex (it's Vastly Overrated, It's Frequently Unnecessary, And It's Messy), It Is Greatly To Be Preferred To The Interminable Torments Of Romantic Agony Through Which Two People Tear One Another Limb From Limb While Professing Altruistic Devotion.
Love
Sex
Agony
It's Written Into The Constitution That You're Allowed To Pursue Happiness. In England It Would Be Considered A Frivolous Objective.
Would Be
England
Constitution
The Poverty From Which I Have Suffered Could Be Diagnosed As 'soho' Poverty. It Comes From Having The Airs And Graces Of A Genius And No Talent.
Air
Grace
Genius
I Read All The Books I Could Find About Manners, And The Extraordinary Thing Was, In All Books Up To The End Of The Second World War, Most Were Directed At How To Comport Yourself In The Presence Of The Ladies.
War
Book
World
Well, It Has Done Terrifying Things. Religious Ideas Are Inflammatory In A Way That I Find Difficult To Understand. There Are Very Few Wars Over The Theory Of Relativity. Very Few Heated Arguments, For That Matter. Whereas, In Northern Ireland, They Are Killing One Another Over Religion.
Religious
War
Ideas
People Are Not Heterosexual Or Homosexual, Just Sexual.
People
Homosexual
The Young Always Have The Same Problem - How To Rebel And Conform At The Same Time. They Have Now Solved This By Defying Their Parents And Copying One Another.
Teenage
Parent
Copying
Fashion Is A Way Of Not Having To Decide Who You Are. Style Is Deciding Who You Are And Being Able To Perpetuate It.
Fashion
Style
Able
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.
Freedom
Blessing
Simple
All This Cut-price Transcendentalism Does Not Prevent California From Being A Startlingly Physical State. This Becomes Most Obvious Where Los Angeles Saunters Down To The Sea. The Region Is Called Venice.
Cutting
Sea
California
Never Get Involved With Someone Who Wants To Change You
Advice
Want
Get Involved
Even Hooligans Marry, Though They Know That Marriage Is For A Little While. It Is Alimony That Is For Ever.
Littles
Alimony
Knows
I Like Living In One Room And Have Never Known What People Do With The Room They Are Not In.
People
Rooms
Known
Health Consists Of Having The Same Diseases As One's Neighbors.
Health
Ironic
Disease
I Approach My Life With Logic. I Do Not Act On Impulse Or Emotion. I Very Seldom Find That I Say, 'and Then I Can't Think What Came Over Me, But I Did This Or That Or The Other.' I Nearly Always Know How I Will Act And I Nearly Always Act In That Way. I Don't Catch Myself Out In Embarrassing Situations Because I've Acted Without Forethought. I Calculate What I Will Do.
Thinking
Way
Emotion
The Court Was Not Previously Aware Of The Prisoner's Many Accomplishments. In View Of These, We See Fit To Impose The Death Penalty.
Views
Accomplishment
Death Penalty
As Soon As A Person Takes A Part As A Homosexual, The Press Says, "what Do Your Wife And Children Think Of This?" And The Actor Never Says, "well, Last Week I Was A Murderer, And The Week Before That I Was A Child Molester, And The Week Before That I Was A Lunatic. But Now I'm A Homosexual."
Children
Thinking
Wife
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."
Country
Travel
America
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
Morning
Keys
Faces
I Have To Realise That As I Am Only English And Am Allowed To Live In America, I Have To Give Something In Return. And Since I Cannot Build A Hospital, Or Endow A University, I Can Only Give My Infinite Availability.
Availability
America
Giving
I Stay In One Room, And It's Easier To Live There, To Control It, To Make It Warm. It Seems To Me A Convenient Way To Live, And It's Cheap.
Way To Live
Rooms
Easier
Sex Is The Last Refuge Of The Miserable.
Funny
Sarcastic
Sex
The Proprietor Had Hair So Red That Pigmentation Had Flowed Out Into Every Visible Inch Of His Skin And Even Into The Pinks Of His Eyes, As The Colour Of Flowering Cherry Trees Stains Their Leaves.
Eye
Hair
Tree
To Minimize My Guilt At Going To The Pictures - To Call This Wanton Pursuit Of An Effete Pleasure By Another Name - I Needed Movie Companions As Drunkards Need Drinking Partners. If I Entered A Cinema Alone, God Might Plunge His Arm Through The Roof Of The Auditorium Booming In A Stereophonic Voice, 'and You, Crisp, What Are You Doing Here?' I Would Never Have Dared Reply, 'i'm Just Enjoying Myself, Lord.'
Drinking
Names
Voice
I Am A Stereotype. I Am An Effeminate Man.
Men
Stereotype
The World Now Seems A Stunningly Ignoble Place. It Has Not Really Grown All That Much Worse But Appears To Have Done So Because We Know So Much More About It Than We Did.
Done
World
Ignoble
I Became One Of The Stately Homos Of England.
England
Homosexuality
When I Was Young, We Thought That Oscar Wilde Was A Great Nobleman Who Had Thrown His Life Away For Love. Nothing Could Be Less True. He Slept With East Enders Who Were Procured For Him By Lord Alfred Douglas. He Knew Them Only 'in Braille' - The Curtains Were Never Drawn Back In The Rooms In Oxford Where He Met Those Boys. It Was The Most Sordid Life You Can Imagine. And He Was Bleating About Love And Dragging The Fair Name Of Mr. Plato Into The Trial - After A Life Like That?
Plato
Boys
Names
The Trouble With Children Is That They're Not Returnable.
Funny
Hilarious
Sarcastic
God, From Whose Territory I Had Withdrawn My Ambassadors At The Age Of Fourteen. It Had Become Obvious That He Was Never Going To Do A Thing I Said.
Age
Ambassadors
Territory
I Found That I Had Become So Spinsterish That I Was Made Neurotic Not Only By My Life Of Domesticity But By The Slightest Derangement Of My Room. I Would Burst Into A Fit Of Weeping If The Kettle Was Not Facing Due East.
East
Rooms
Fit
The Message That 'love' Will Solve All Of Our Problems Is Repeated Incessantly In Contemporary Culture - Like A Philosophical Tom Tom. It Would Be Closer To The Truth To Say That Love Is A Contagious And Virulent Disease Which Leaves A Victim In A State Of Near Imbecility, Paralysis, Profound Melancholia, And Sometimes Culminates In Death.
Love
Philosophical
Profound
As Someone Remarked, When Told The New Atomic Bombs Would Explode Without A Bang, "they Can't Leave Anything Alone."
Bangs
Bombs
Atomic Bomb
Style, In The Broadest Sense Of All, Is Consciousness. More Specifically It Is A Consistent Idiom Arising Spontaneously From The Personality But Deliberately Maintained.
Personality
Style
Consciousness
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?
Block
Lying
People
The Americans, Of Course, Are Quite Dotty With Hospitality.
Hospitality
Courses
Our Clothes Are Too Much A Part Of Us For Most Of Us Ever To Be Entirely Indifferent To Their Condition: It Is As Though The Fabric Were Indeed A Natural Extension Of The Body, Or Even Of The Soul.
Clothes
Soul
Fabric
If You Don't Stay In Some Days, You Can't Recharge Your Batteries.
Batteries
Ifs
That's The Only Sense In Which I've Been Lucky: I Have The Kind Of Face To Which Cosmetics Could Be Applied.
Lucky
Cosmetics
Faces
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.
Writing
Realist
Ifs
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.
Hurt
Mistake
Knives
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.
Gay
Thinking
Done
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?'
Peace
Atheist
Believe
If You Truly Love Me, Kill The Bartender.
Bartender
Ifs
Abatement In The Hostility Of One's Enemies Must Never Be Thought To Signify They Have Been Won Over. It Only Means That One Has Ceased To Constitute A Threat.
Mean
Enemy
Threat
Michelangelo Worked From Within. He Described Not The Excitements Of Touching Or Seeing A Man But The Excitement Of Being Man.
Men
Touching
Excitement
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.
Hurt
Confused
Self
Ask Yourself, If There Was To Be No Blame, And If There Was To Be No Praise, Who Would I Be Then?
Blame
Praise
Asks
In England, Nobody's Your Friend.
England
The Law Is Simply Expediency Wearing A Long White Dress.
Funny
Humor
Law
Fashion Is Not Style. Nay, We Can Say More: Fashion Is Instead Of Style. Style Is An Idiom Springing Spontaneously From The Personality But Deliberately Maintained. If You Have No Personality, You May Be Able To Save Your Face And, Possibly, Your Entire Anatomy By Following The Current Fashion, But All We Shall Know About You, When We See You Coming Down The Street, Is That You Had Enough Money To Buy A Glossy Magazine And Were Sufficiently Cunning To Work Out The Cut Of The Garments Shown Therein.
Fashion
Cutting
Work Out
I Am Told That You Regret Not What You Did But What You Didn't Do; And So That's Why I Do Everything, So As Not To Have Any Regrets.
Regret
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.
New York
Men
America
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.
Children
Greek
Monsters
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.
Love
Sex
Destiny
For Flavor, Instant Sex Will Never Supersede The Stuff You Have To Peel And Cook.
Love
Funny
Sex
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.
Winter
Thinking
Long
Nothing In Our Culture, Not Even Home Computers, Is More Overrated Than The Epidermal Felicity Of Two Featherless Bipeds In Desperate Congress.
Home
Two
Culture
If You Live In America, You Don't Have To Work. You Can Just Drift Along In The Smiling And Nodding Racket.
America
Nodding
Racket
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