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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.

-Quentin Crisp

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Why Get Married? For

Quentin Crisp

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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.

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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.

All America Is Much The Same.

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.

Vice Is Its Own Reward. It Is Virtue Which, If It Is To Be Marketed With Consumer Appeal, Must Carry Green Shield Stamps.

Did You Know That Allah Promises You A Seat In Paradise If You Kill A Christian?

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.

I Never Miss England.

It's Been Agony But I Couldn't Have Done It Any Other Way.

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.

I Never Spend My Time Doing Anything I'll Have To Do Again Tomorrow.

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.

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.

There Is No Need To Do Any Housework At All. After The First Four Years The Dirt Doesn't Get Any Worse.

That's The Only Sense In Which I've Been Lucky: I Have The Kind Of Face To Which Cosmetics Could Be Applied.

I Am Asked How To Remain Young, And I Say 'never, Never Work.' And That, Of Course, Is The Secret Of It.

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.

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.

You Don't Have To Deal With Anyone In America. They Accept You The Way You Are.

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.

Never Keep Up With The Joneses. Drag Them Down To Your Level.

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.

Men Get Laid, But Women Get Screwed.

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.

The Scots Are Very Hospitable; Almost As Hospitable As The Americans.

In Manhattan, Every Flat Surface Is A Potential Stage And Every Inattentive Waiter An Unemployed, Possibly Unemployable, Actor.

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.

Women Have Decided To Be People, Which Is A Great Mistake. Women Were Nicer Than People.

I Am A Stereotype. I Am An Effeminate Man.

Never Get Involved With Someone Who Wants To Change You

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.

In New York, I Find People So Courteous And So Generous. Free Drinks In Bars. Free Taxi Rides.

You Will Survive If You Believe In Yourself.

Believe In Yourself

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.

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.

For Flavor, Instant Sex Will Never Supersede The Stuff You Have To Peel And Cook.

Flowers Are Words Even A Baby Can Understand.

The Distinction Between Indoors And Outdoors, Which In England Is Usually So Marked, Was Temporarily Suspended In A Hot Gauzy Haze.

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.)

Any Film Is At Least Better Than Real Life.

You Don't Have To Do Anything.

God Is So Angry. All That Power, And So Mean With It.

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

If At First You Don't Succeed, Failure May Be Your Style.

Believe In Fate, But Lean Forward Where Fate Can See You.

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.

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."

When Asked, 'shall I Tell My Mother I'm Gay?', I Reply, 'never Tell Your Mother Anything.

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.

I've Never Not Been Famous.

The War Between The Sexes Is The Only One In Which Both Sides Regularly Sleep With The Enemy.

I Go Wherever My Fare Is Paid.

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.

The More People One Has To Love, The More One's Capacity To Love Stretches.

Capacity To Love

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.

To My Disappointment I Now Realized That To Know All Is Not To Forgive All. It Is To Despise Everybody.

Most Men When They Make Up Their Faces, The Makeup Stands Forward, And Their Faces Are Behind.

Nothing In Our Culture, Not Even Home Computers, Is More Overrated Than The Epidermal Felicity Of Two Featherless Bipeds In Desperate Congress.

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.

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?

Style, In The Broadest Sense Of All, Is Consciousness. More Specifically It Is A Consistent Idiom Arising Spontaneously From The Personality But Deliberately Maintained.

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.

If One Is Not Going To Take The Necessary Precautions To Avoid Having Parents, One Must Undertake To Bring Them Up.

Though Intelligence Is Powerless To Modify Character, It Is A Dab Hand At Finding Euphemisms For Its Weaknesses.

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.

Euphemisms Are Not, As Many Young People Think, Useless Verbiage For That Which Can And Should Be Said Bluntly; They Are Like Secret Agents On A Delicate Mission, They Must Airily Pass By A Stinking Mess With Barely So Much As A Nod Of The Head, Make Their Point Of Constructive Criticism And Continue On In Calm Forbearance. Euphemisms Are Unpleasant Truths Wearing Diplomatic Cologne.

My Mother Protected Me From The World And My Father Threatened Me With It.

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.

You Must Stop This Interview Now As I Have Come To End Of My Personality.

England Is Very Dreary, But I'm A People Person.

In England, The System Is Benign And The People Are Hostile. In America, The People Are Friendlyand The System Is Brutal!

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.

If You Don't Stay In Some Days, You Can't Recharge Your Batteries.

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?

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.

A Gentleman Doesn't Pounce He Glides. If A Woman Sits On A Piece Of Furniture Which Permits Your Sitting Beside Her, You Are Free To Regard This As An Invitation, Though Not An Unequivocal One.

I've Always Lived In The Same Way.

Nowadays People Don't Use Face Powder; They Say It Dries The Skin. But I Makeup In The Old-fashioned Way.

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

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.

Quentin Crisp (to Handsome Young Man On The Street): "what's The Matter, Sexy? Don't You Like Dehydrated Fruit?

The Americans, Of Course, Are Quite Dotty With Hospitality.

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."

I Never Saw Portsmouth By Day.

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.

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!

The English Think That Incompetence Is The Same Thing As Sincerity.

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.

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.

In England, Nobody's Your Friend.

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.

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.

I Can't Remember Ever Having A Tragic Demeanor. Although My Life Was Tragedy.

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.

I Don't Believe In Convention At All. I Do What I Have To Do To Stay Alive.

To Say A Thing Is Natural Is To Condone It, Never To Praise It.

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.

Manners Are Love In A Cool Climate.

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.

One Should Always Be Wary Of Anyone Who Promises That Their Love Will Last Longer Than A Weekend.

To Love Another Person You Have To Undertake Some Fragment Of Their Destiny.

Fashion Is What You Adopt When You Don't Know Who You Are.

I Like Living In One Room And Have Never Known What People Do With The Room They Are Not In.

The Trouble With Children Is That They're Not Returnable.

I'm Too Old To Make Drawings.

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.

My Function In Life Was To Render Clear What Was Already Blindingly Conspicuous.

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?

Love Is Not Enough. It Must Be The Foundation, The Cornerstone - But Not The Complete Structure. It Is Much Too Pliable, Too Yielding.

If You Truly Love Me, Kill The Bartender.

The Trouble With European Cities Is That They Are Drenched In Their History, Almost All Of Which Is Terrible.

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.

Charisma Is The Ability To Influence Without Logic.

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.

If You Live In America, You Don't Have To Work. You Can Just Drift Along In The Smiling And Nodding Racket.

You Fall Out Of Your Mother's Womb, You Crawl Across Open Country Under Fire, And Drop Into Your Grave.

I Learned Very Early In Life That I Was Always Going To Need People More Than They Needed Me

Even Hooligans Marry, Though They Know That Marriage Is For A Little While. It Is Alimony That Is For Ever.

Every Day Someone Notices Me And Waves To Me, Or Stops And Speaks To Me, Or Asks Me For An Autograph, Or Photographs Me.

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."

Michelangelo Worked From Within. He Described Not The Excitements Of Touching Or Seeing A Man But The Excitement Of Being Man.

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.

I Never Understood Music. It Seemed To Me To Be The Maximum Amount Of Noise Conveying The Minimum Amount Of Information.

Health Consists Of Having The Same Diseases As One's Neighbors.

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

Decency Must Be An Even More Exhausting State To Maintain Than Its Opposite. Those Who Succeed Seem To Need A Stupefying Amount Of Sleep.

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.

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.'

When I Was Young, I And The Whole World Thought That All Homosexuals Were Effeminate. And Of Course They're Not. You Can Just See Which People Are Effeminate; That's The Only Difference. So, I Became A Prototype Of The Effeminate Man, Because I Was Conspicuously Effeminate. But Camp Is Not Something I Do, It's Something I Am.

I Never Really Found Out What Love Was.

If I Have Any Talent At All, It Is Not For Doing But For Being.

I Don't Think I Have A Tragic Demeanor.

People Are Not Heterosexual Or Homosexual, Just Sexual.

Living En Famille Provides The Strongest Motives For Rudeness Combined With The Maximum Opportunity For Displaying It.

I Recommend Limiting One's Involvement In Other People's Lives To A Pleasantly Scant Minimum.

Exhibitionism Is Like A Drug. Hooked In Adolescence I Was Now Taking Doses So Massive They Would Have Killed A Novice.

Now You Can Leave Home At Any Time You Like.your Mother Comes Down And Finds A Picture Of The Eiffel Tower On Her Plate. And She Says, 'oh! Rosemary's Gone To Paris. No Wonder The Bathroom Was So Tidy.' And Nobody Minds. But In My Day, To Go Abroad With All Those Wicked Frenchmen, What Would Become Of Them? So No-one Ever Went Anywhere.

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.

When I Was Young, I Don't Know How, I Spent All My Time In The Presence Of Married Women Telling Me Their Troubles. And When I Said 'why Did You Marry?' They Said, 'oh I Married To Get Away From Home.' And When I Said, 'and Why Don't You Leave Him?' They Gave The Saddest Answer In The World: They Said, 'where Would I Go?' So They Stayed With Men They Didn't Like Because They Had Nowhere To Go.

If Love Means Anything At All It Means Extending Your Hand To The Unlovable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For An Introvert His Environment Is Himself And Can Never Be Subject To Startling Or Unforeseen Change.

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.

I Have Come To Think That Both Sex And Politics Are A Mistake And That Any Attempt To Establish A Connection Between The Two Is The Greatest Error Of All.

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?'

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.

Life Is A Game In Which The Rules Are Constantly Changing; Nothing Spoils A Game More Than Those Who Take It Seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You Should Never Subjugate Yourself To Another Nor Seek The Subjugation Of Someone Else To Yourself. If You Follow That Crispian Principle You Will Be Able To Say Phooey, Too, Instead Of Reaching For Your Gun When You Fancy Yourself Betrayed.

Britain Cherishes Her Eccentrics And Wisely Holds That The Function Of Government Is To Build A Walled Garden In Which Anarchy Can Flourish.

Neither Look Forward Where There Is Doubt Nor Backward Where There Is Regret. Look Inward And Ask Not If There Is Anything Outside You Want, But Whether There Is Anything Inside That You Have Not Yet Unpacked.

Europeans Are Quarrelsome.

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.

The Worst Part Of Being Gay In The Twentieth Century Is All That Damn Disco Music To Which One Has To Listen.

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.

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."

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.

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.

The Curiosity Of The Neighbors About You, Is A Tribute To Your Individuality, And You Should Encourage It

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?

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.

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.

I Don't Really Act. I Say The Words The Way I Would Say Them If I Meant Them.

Happiness Is The Only Thing I Understand.

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.

What I Wanted Most Of All Was To Use Sex As A Weapon To Allure, Subjugate, And, If Possible, Destroy The Personality Of Others.

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?'

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.

Posing Was The First Job I Did In Which I Understood What I Was Doing.

Sex Is The Last Refuge Of The Miserable.

Development Of Character Consists Solely In Moving Toward Self-sufficiency.

I Was Beaten Up Wherever I Went, And People Shouted At Me And Cursed Me And Threw Things At Me.

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.

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.

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."

Vice Is Its Own Reward.

As Someone Remarked, When Told The New Atomic Bombs Would Explode Without A Bang, "they Can't Leave Anything Alone."

I Would Never Go To A Place And Live There Because The Weather Was Good Or The Scenery Was Beautiful Or The Architecture Was Wonderful. I Would Only Go Because The People Are Kind, And In America, Everybody's Your Friend And Happiness Rains Down From The Sky.

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.

It's A Strange Situation, But People Will Pay Your Fare To Get You To Go And Tell Them How To Be Happy.

Life Was A Funny Thing That Happened To Me On The Way To The Grave.

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.

To Lose Is Not Always Failure.

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.

However Low A Man Sinks He Never Reaches The Level Of The Police.

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.

You Can't Be A Person And A Lady. If You're A Person, You Can Open The Damned Door Yourself.

The World Was Very Feminine When I Was Young. And Now It's Very Masculine.

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.

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.

Ask Yourself, If There Was To Be No Blame, And If There Was To Be No Praise, Who Would I Be Then?

Never Sweep. After Four Years The Dirt Gets No Worse.

What Better Proof Of Love Can There Be Than Money? A Ten-shilling Note Shows Incontrovertibly Just How Mad About You A Man Is.

It Is True That In America I've Become A National Hero, But Really I Was A Hopeless Case, That Was All.

It's Written Into The Constitution That You're Allowed To Pursue Happiness. In England It Would Be Considered A Frivolous Objective.

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.

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.

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.

Is Not The Whole World A Vast House Of Assignation Of Which The Filing System Has Been Lost?

I Don't Know How People Act. I've Never Understood That.

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Edward St Aubyn

Julianna Margulies

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