English - Writer | December 25, 1908 - November 21, 1999
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.
Quentin Crisp
EnoughPartnershipRelationshipsTake
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.
LifeHappinessCharacterMoving
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?
GodWomanPeopleBelieveYouSaid
Manners are love in a cool climate.
LoveCoolMannersClimate
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.
PurposePeopleOpinionThinkHold
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.
BookReadingPersonGoSinPossible
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
FatherMotherParentingMeWorld
To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.
KnowForgiveEverybodyDespise
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.
FreedomSimpleFactsTolerance
Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.
CharacterIntelligenceFindingHand
The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.
DressLawLongWhiteSimplyWearing
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.
WinterMoneyWorldThinkLongYou
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