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To read a novel or see a play was to drink life through a straw — to smoke it through a filter-tip. If we were not afraid of blackening our teeth or riddling our lungs with cancer — if we were a dauntless race of men with strong digestions — we would be able to devour life without the aid of these over-civilized devices.

— Quentin Crisp The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

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More quotes by Quentin Crisp

Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share.

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

Mass-murderers are simply people who have had ENOUGH.

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

I acquiesced in this on the grounds that the most anyone can expect from a holiday is a change of agony.

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

As someone remarked, when told the new atomic bombs would explode without a bang, "they can’t leave anything alone."

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

All Quentin Crisp quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Quentin Crisp (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.