Quentin Crisp

I like his style

He was still alive when I was in NYC in late 80's. His number was listed in the phone book and it was frequently said that he accepted almost every dinner invitation. Don't know why - maybe old world sense of style.

I was young then and didn't have much money, but always thought that would have been a highlight to take him to dinner. Missed my chance.

He was never seen as a joke. Not by anyone with any intelligence. Neither was he a gay rights crusader. He simply had the courage to thumb his nose at convention and live his life as he wanted.

That stated, he was extremely idiosyncratic.

R2 - thanks for sharing that wonderful story. Seems like you had a magical time in NYC. 😊

His younger days.....

Just having the bravery to take those “gay” photographs back then is something.

In today speak, would he have been an influencer?

Read his books. There's a movie about him called The Naked Civil Servant with John Hurt. He used to hang out at Rose's Turn, when I was in NYC in the 90's and he was such a great storyteller, very sweet man.

He wasn't really a gay man, he was a transsexual...even he came to realise this in later life.

[quote]What was he about and did he help us gay men further iur cause

He said very backward things about gay men in the '80s - that no man would ever WANT to be gay, stuff like that. So the answer that that is no.

[quote]or was he seen as a joke?

More of a freak than a joke.

But the TV play they made about his life was powerful and resonated down the ages and was groundbreaking. It was on TV again this evening here in London. It changed his life.

He had a good mind and cut to the quick. He hated England and what he said about the English was generally true. They were so much kinder to him in New York. I love the thing he said about crossing the bridge in Manhattan he saw the skyline for the first time and "wanted it". I don't think he'd ever been out of England before.

[quote] very sweet man.

Hardly. He was a cold fish. Only interested in himself.

I second the spirit of R3 and R8’s posts. A friend of mine long deceased, Felicity Mason, an Englishwoman about Quentin’s age used to have these “tea parties” on Sundays at her small furniture crammed apartment- also crammed with people. Quentin poured tea! He was very nice and very eccentric- old fashioned queen- clearly with guts. He was nice if a bit off putting- you kind of had to stay with him- because he sure wasn’t going to stay with you. My friend Felicity was just as big a character Quentin- that’s another story!

R9 He was a camp gay man, you fucking asshole

He also said AIDS was a fad that would go away if they just ignored it.

R12 And he apologized for the statement

[quote][R9] He was a camp gay man, you fucking asshole

He wasn't a camp gay man. I'm not an assshole and you're an idiot.

Thanks posters for all the good tea on Quentin! Seems like he was a troubled man. I guess most of the people who stand out are a bit off. But also an obvious free spirit who went against the grain, and I like that.

[quote][[R9]] He was a camp gay man, you fucking asshole

He was a cross dresser. Do you even know what "camp" means?

R14 Cool, link to where he said he was actually not a gay man, but a tranny

Crisp famously accepted invitations because he was cheap. And the listed phone number was true. I had friends who called him and took him out.

He was unreconstructed and had his own ideas about the dysfunction and unwanted condition of being gay. He embraced who he was and constructed what he became, but he was a singular, not a model for gay people.

His best lines had nothing to do with being gay. I heard him say that his filthy and unkept place was the result of hard work in not cleaning over many years. He said that if you leave everything to the dust after a few years it never looks any worse. "The hardest part is not to lose your nerve," he said, instructing us on how to achieve it. It was one of the funniest, cleverest and best presented lines I ever heard.

He was getting very frail and was a little potty by then. But he did the schtick.

R9 is correct, mostly. R11 is a foul idolator of someone and something he didn't know or understand. Crisp was brilliant, but he wasn't cute. He was proud, pathetic, brazen, silly, self-conscious, and a self-created work of art. He didn't care about people - he had to be kept up with. He didn't keep up with others.

There was nothing sweet about him. He didn't want or need the wimpy, warm smiles of droolers and he did not intend to be a poster child for anything except his own successful survival. He was harmless and polite, but didn't care (much) about others' opinions of him. He patterned himself after Oscar Wilde, and his courage was something to applaud in his early years. Of course, there were others doing the same thing in the lavender league and the campy (that's where R9 and I part a little) circles in London and NYC. But I saw his campiness in his performance and style. Not in much else.

[quote][R14] Cool, link to where he said he was actually not a gay man, but a tranny—i shall wait cunt

Actually I won't bother.

Quentin knew about transsexuals (actual ones - not the ones we see now) - I see no reason why he wouldn't have been more vocal about that and adopted that term if it really fit.

Get your facts straight, CUNT R13, he never apologized, although there is an attempt at rewriting history by saying he donated to AIDS causes. Other zingers he made:

He denounced the gay rights movement and slammed homosexuality as "a terrible disease." "The world would be better without homosexuals," he declared.

Echoing tin-pot homophobes, Quentin disparaged homosexuality as an illness, affliction, burden, curse and abnormality. He said he felt "disfigured" by his gayness.

In 1997, he told The Times that he would advise parents to abort a foetus if it could be shown to be genetically predetermined to be gay: "If it (homosexuality) can be avoided, I think it should be."

[quote]Quentin knew about transsexuals (actual ones - not the ones we see now) - I see no reason why he wouldn't have been more vocal about that and adopted that term if it really fit.

He didn't really care about relabeling himself in later life. I don't blame him.

Letterman even interviewed him a number of times!

I used to see him walking around the East Village, usually down 1st or 2nd. Always dressed up with a hat, walking slowly. He would stop and talk to anyone about anything. I wondered how he made it through the rough streets of New York, especially the Lower East Side in the 90s. And he was listed in the phone book until he died. He always answered and made some sardonic remark as if he was "on" and being paid to do it. I do remember people looking back at him and laughing, but he obviously was used to it.

There are a lot of great interviews with him on youtube.

Camp doesn't necessarily translate to cross-dressing. Camp doesn't have to require that much work.

He hated England but ended up dying there. LOL.

I saw some documentary and it showed him at a family gathering in England and in fact his (younger) family were pretty cool people who accepted him and appreciated him.

R24 - yeah, he lived in the East Village. 1st and 2nd avenue weren't THAT bad back then. Avenues B and C would have been different.

I do recall now seeing him when I lived on St. Mark's. Small man in a hat - I didn't think anything about him until my friend said something.

Quentin Crisp was eminently quotable. One of my favorite quotes of his:

“If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.”

As far as his comments on homosexuality are concerned, I suspect they were intended to be taken with a grain of salt. Even back then. I think what he loathed was the herd mentality, no matter who was opposed or supported in the process. No, I didn’t know him. But I’ve read his work and seen him speak. Just my gut feeling.

R18 If that's one of the funniest/cleverest lines you've ever heard you probably don't get out much.

Denis Charles Pratt was born into an Edwardian England that held far different attitudes towards homosexuals, effiminate men/boys, and transvesties than today. It was the world of "Maurice, Clive, and Lord Risley" in fiction, but EMF among others in real life. What all of them had in common was a need to navigate their lives to not run afoul of laws, avoid scandal, but try to find some sort of acceptance, love, and or just the odd bit of sex.

Then as now gay community was often no better or welcoming than straights in reaction to blatantly effeminate gay men. QC's gay peers often wanted no part of being anywhere near.

Unlike Anthony Blanche ( a fictional contemporary) QC didn't have wealth, status or society connections to protect him; but he did develop a quick wit which helped him cope and survive.

Effiminate gay youth then and since have hit the streets with nothing more than their wits to survive. Some managed, others weren't so lucky. QC lived to be shy of 100 years old, living much of those 90 years on his own terms. Could he have made better choices and had an easier time of things? Sure, but then he might not also have been happy.

As for the self loathing, well there was plenty of that among gays of QC's generation and since. I mean you grow up hearing nothing but nasty things said about "inverts", and then going to church and getting more about "sin", "filth", and how homosexuals are all going to hell and so forth, it just doesn't all just drop away.

Sting came to be a great friend of QC said this:

" Quentin is a hero of mine, someone I know very well. He is gay and he was gay at a time in history when it was dangerous to be so. He had people beating up on him on a daily basis, largely with the consent of the public."

Mary!

I like his books a lot, and as the post R30 points out, he was from a generation that didn't have any other gay voices so it's not surprising a lot of things he said were 'off-message' to gay ears of the late 20th/early 21st century.

He was a one-off for sure, he never spoke on behalf of a community because I don't think he ever felt part of one. And again consider the time he grew up it's no wonder he hated himself. There are still more than enough LGB people who hate themselves now (overwhelming due to family / religious pressures I'd say) in a Western post-liberation world.

If he were to emerge today he'd be an insufferable Instagram whore like Jacob or Alok whose only reason for existing is their own self-defined 'fabulousness'. Quentin lived the life he did without the constant applause and validation of social media and at a time when that was genuinely brave. I dare say plenty of other people did too, but they didn't have the good fortune to have their story adapted into a massively acclaimed television film.

“Without knowing it, I was acquiring that haughty bearing which is characteristic of so many eccentrics. What other expression would you expect to find on the face of anyone who knows that if he turns his head too quickly, he will see on the faces of others glares of stark terror or grimaces of hatred? Aloofness is the posture of self-defense.” ― Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

In response to a blackmail attempt by two young boys, a senior citizen QC responds:

"I defy you to do your worst. It can hardly be my worst. Mine has already and often happened to me. You cannot touch me now. I am one of the "stately homos of England".

He was sensational as Queen Elizabeth I in "Orlando." My favourite quote of his [actually hers], when Orlando's father is sucking up to her at an evening banquet, "All that you would give me is already mine."

I wonder if he ever had sex?

Yes, he did, R35. Plenty.

& apparently when the American GI's were in London during the war, they'd fuck anything.

I had lunch with him a few times back when I was editing some of his writing. He was quite pleasant, but not the conversationalist I expected. In fact, I had to kind of work to keep the chat going. He struck me as being somewhat overwhelmed by his own identity.

He did an off-Broadway show where he basically just sat there and spoke for an hour and a half. It was actually pretty enjoyable and I've always remembered a great line he spoke: "Not everyone can be famous, but ANYONE can be infamous." I've thought of that many times over the years.

And of course, the great last line of The Naked Civil Servant, when some boys are taunting him in the park: "You can't touch me now, I'm one of the stately homos of England!"

[quote]He struck me as being somewhat overwhelmed by his own identity.

Imagine him today, with Instagram etc...

I saw him a few times around the Village in the 90s. Flaming queer - which he deserves credit for being at a time when gays were illegal. But the mental damage from being a super effeminate gay man - who was incapable of hiding it - made him more of a survivor than a civil rights hero. He got through a tough life and lived long enough to see gay rights happen. But his outlook on life was of survival.

The thing I loved most about his stories and diaries and way of life was his complete rejection of capitalism. He was ever caught up in getting and spending - just being. Lived in studios with a bed, chair and table. Both in London and NYC. Of course, it was during a time where that was possible - couldn’t happen today as you couldn’t even get a studio in the East Village without working a corporate job.

And he also said it's ok to lose.

I always admire people who have the guts to be who they are- even forgive them a bit for stepping out of bounds every now and then. Who doesn't? As I said- he was perfectly charming at Felicity's teas. He was really like a little old lady- with a certain amount of wit. His take on the world and gay rights was very much of his time, not ours. Still, he had the guts to be who he was. He found it much easier to do in NYC than London.

Did he dial the phone with a pencil?

[quote]it was frequently said that he accepted almost every dinner invitation. Don't know why - maybe old world sense of style.

Maybe he just enjoyed a free meal.

Exactly what he said R44. He was so used to a life of poverty, he never turned down a free meal. Apparently in the US he got regular invites - often from complete strangers. And my sense is he wasn’t a raconteur or fascinating dinner guest - it was just for people to be able to say “I had dinner with Quentin Crisp”

He was doing a book signing at the Book Mark, a bookstore in San Diego in the 1980s. He would sign any of his books that day. I bought one and he autographed it to me, with a big swirly signature, very nice. We chatted for a couple minutes as there was nobody waiting. He was the perfect elegant teacup English gentleman. I bet he would have been fun to have lunch with, or just sit and have a long conversation with, over tea. His hair was white but he had dyed it purple.

He was doing a book signing at the Book Mark, a bookstore in San Diego in the 1980s. He would sign any of his books that day. I bought one and he autographed it to me, with a big swirly signature, very nice. We chatted for a couple minutes as there was nobody waiting. He was the perfect elegant teacup English gentleman. I bet he would have been fun to have lunch with, or just sit and have a long conversation with, over tea. His hair was white but he had dyed it purple.

Late in life QC was a learned benign film critic for 'Christopher Street.' To this job he brought decades of knowledge absorbed in the dark, going back almost to the silent era.

Doubtless the disjunct between this experience and the modern era added to the charm of his prose. He was scrupulous always to try and find some good things to say; and actors were always referred to as 'Mr', 'Mrs', or 'Miss.'

[quote]Did he dial the phone with a pencil?

He did say he didn't approve of push-button phones.

[quote]I bet he would have been fun to have lunch with, or just sit and have a long conversation with, over tea.

As long as you talked about him. I wonder if he ever asked anyone a question.

R49 Those toenails! 🤮

I wonder if Quentin ever had any BBC?

Probably, he was a prostitute for 6 months in the late 1920's

[quote]He did say he didn't approve of push-button phones.

Odd to think that was the big leap forward of its time.

(Quentin mentioned me in his diaries.) With bitch-queen sass, he read me — about my crappy shoes and ripped jeans. He was exceptionally polite. And clever.

One time we were talking about River Phoenix. And later, Quentin made a reference about "Miss Taylor...."

I said, "What are you talking about? Elizabeth Taylor never worked with River Phoenix."

Quentin huffed, "Not Elizabeth Taylor. I mean Lili!"

R54

Touch tone telephone service was a huge advancement. It set the tone for what was to come later with various mobile devices used today that have come to dominate communications.

From an efficiency point of view push buttons were easier and faster to manage than rotary dials This saved time not just for domestic customers, but many business/corporate applications as well. Everything from switchboard/telephone operators down to girls (or guys) working in offices as secretaries, assistants, receptionists, etc.....

Push button telephones along with associated switching technology made possible most if not all the communication advances we've seen post 1980's. Fax machines, answering machines, auto dialing, all those various menu choices when you call anyone from a company to bank (where you select something by pressing corresponding button such as "customer service, press #7).

Push button telephone service also ushered in various products for the disabled (deaf, blind, etc...) that weren't possible (or easy) with rotary service. Most of the time such persons would have had to either have someone else make a call, or have it completed by an operator.

I’ve posted this before but one time in the 80s I sat across from him on a New York City bus headed downtown. I was young and knew he was “somebody,” but not sure who. He had a cane and a sweet face and seemed fragile. I had a flash of concern for him as an elderly person traveling alone in the city at night.

Surprisingly there is quite a lot out there about "gay" life from say 1900 through pre-WWII years. This would have of course been the period QC knew.

Between the wars Germany was probably one of the more tolerant places for LGT, but that sadly came to an end with rise of Nazis and WWII.

Another clip from "Different From The Others"

R35

WWII GB was full of American military from officers down to GIs who far from home were able to act upon things they never could (or would) otherwise.

Any sort of sex straight, gay, trans/drag was easily found at least around Piccadilly.

If you've not seen Rodney Ackland's play "Absolute Hell" strongly recommend doing so. Set in WWII London (Soho) it gives glimpse of some very interesting bits of society.

There always have been guys attracted to femmy gays, drag queens or trans (yes they all existed in Victorian/Edwardian GB/Europe), and QC got his fair share of trade during WWII, much of it US military, but other guys as well.

QC had worked as a rent boy, and assuming he didn't tone himself down or butch things up there must have been a clientele for his services.

He was always listed in the phone book, however famous he became.

R61: You must be the 3rd or 4th person to mention this. We get it.

Well he would, wouldn't he? Ma Bell charged extra for unlisted telephone numbers; something that continues today.

QC wasn't exactly flush with cash, and or (understandably) tight with what he had. Besides the guy needed to "work" his act and or keep a constant flow of strangers of whose kindness could be depended upon.

[quote][R61]: You must be the 3rd or 4th person to mention this. We get it.

OK we troll, but no one else posted a photo of his listing.

Now fuck off.

Thanks.

r35, I don;t know where you got that mistaken idea. He actually said he had very little sex in his lifetime.

QC was so accessible that he even kept his phone listing public! What a class act.

Actually the baths were very popular in those days. I’m sure he got some anonymous action at some point in his NYC days.

[quote]Actually the baths were very popular in those days. I’m sure he got some anonymous action at some point in his NYC days.

I'm sure he didn't. He was an old man by the time he moved to NYC and I think he gave up on sex at a relatively early age.

He talked about anal as something he had to "tolerate".

Picture was taken in 1941 making QC about 33 years old if am doing sums correctly.

Can see how he would have pulled during the WWII years. Maybe not rampant sex all the time, but QC wasn't yet the frail elderly man most have come to see him as being.

National Portrait Gallery features a whole collection of QC images with most or all available for purchase.

R68

Recall reading some sort of publication that was a research study of Victorian/Edwardian gay men (or was it just rent boys?). Anyway when asked most replied they rarely if ever engaged in anal sex. It just wasn't something that seemed widely popular with all gay men at the time.

Problem for QC and finding sex was likely same as it was for all femmy gays then and for long time afterwards. Just cruising or being seen with QC (or anyone like him) was an instant "out"

One of his more well-known quotes is about how he rarely cleaned, and after a few years the dust doesn't get any worse.

Big joke

I wonder if he died alone in his apartment.

Yeah - loved the quote about after 3(?) years, it doesn’t get any dirtier and you don’t notice. DL clean queens would have been repulsed. But fit with his whole rejection of materialism - which was one of his great unique qualities.

QC suffered heart attack whilst staying with a friend, taken to hospital and declared formally dead.

R76

No small number of elderly then or now live in dirty apartments, or at least not up to inspection standards.

Scores of home help from aides to nurses and others can confirm this fact.

As people get on they don't have energy once had, and or perhaps just can't be bothered.

Yes, you have those who have lived like "Onslow and Daisy" all their lives, thus situation is completely normal. Myself as am sure countless others well recall as children or teens being sent to gramdmama's or some other elderly relative to basically act as a charwoman. That or our mothers did the job.

That being said can see how some would consider dusting and so forth an fools errand. Soon as you finish dust/soot only returns, especially in dense urban areas and you have open windows.

I heard he kept his phone number listed.

79 posts and all people can do is repeat themselves. I guess he wasn't that interesting after all.

R80 you sound fascinating yourself

Does anyone have his phone number?

I like him like I like Gore Vidal. Smart shrewd and above all witty, but not a friend of the Gay Rights Movement. Didn't care about that shit, but despite themselves made it easier for the rest of us that came afterwards anyway.

I heard he had a phone. And his number was in the phone book! Is it true?? Link!!

So did Bob Fosse. But Crisp could have easily had an unknown phone number if he invented another name and had that listed. Lots of NY actors did that, especially females, but he wanted people to call him.

........

Neither Vidal nor Crisp made it easier for gays.

R79 R82 R84

FLAXman 9398

FLAxman....not FLAXman

you dialled the first three letters in London.

FLA 9398

R5 thanks for those

He was beautiful when he was young, very pretty. I would have been one of his eager "rough trade" hookups if I'd been around back then

R89

Thank you Love!

That's why I cannot have an answer, lately!

He introduced me to the word "bed-sit" during his show "An Evening with Quintin Crisp," a term not in common (or any) use in the US.

I had to go home after the show and look it up, pre-internet, and when that failed, call an English friend. Here we'd call it a studio apartment with a shared bath.

Also: he was a promiscuous scarf abuser.

I also remember seeing Quentin in the East Village during the 1980's often times around 12th & 1st, and no he wasn't a cross dresser, just enjoyed wearing those big femmy scarves.

Word is, he was listed publicly in the phone book! But seriously a lot of famous or semi famous people were listed back then.

This is true. Even Winston Churchill was in the London Phone Book in the 1950s.

Do they still make telephone books? Can I get listed? I’d have to get an actual landline though.

Jackie On Assistance was in the phone book. She was ever open to sharing a few stories for the price of a hot meal.

I once tore up an old phone book, each and every page. By the time I was done, I was eyeballs deep in crumpled paper in a not so small room.

The man whose estate lies under his hat need never tremble before the frowns of society.

R92

SRO hotel or boarding house is probably close as you'll find to a bedsit in most of USA.

As with SROs in American and Canada many areas have gotten rid of bedsits via zoning or other means. Though apartments already in existence still exist in instances new aren't being built.

They are coming back R99

Yes, they are!

New thing in NYC is "micro" apartments.

To all those going on about QC being listed in telephone book, accepting meal invites, talking with anyone he could bend their ear.... have you not ever heard of loneliness?

Single people, especially gays have long suffered from being lonely. You grow old and without children, grand children, family or even some friends, what else is there? If you're working at something or even just being active like volunteering, anything that gets you up, out and meeting/interacting with others.

QC like many other senior citizens (especially gays) likely outlived many of the friends or close acquaintances he had. Then packing up and moving to USA meant there would only be the people he met staring a new life in NYC.

On my block there are several older persons who live alone. You see them on street, bank or wherever and only have to say one word "hello", and they will talk your ears off. It used to bother me until understood why, they have no one in their lives, at least not consistently. They are just so lonely for company that anyone will do.

She was a fabulous eldersister!

Lots of QC vids on YouTube, filled with wisdom and food for thought, especially for ladies wondering how they'll conduct their lives as they age -- why in style, of course! I find Quentin inspirational, and equally his friend, Taylor Mead.

Sadly Lower East Side is no longer a place where people like Quentin Crisp or Taylor Meade could arrive and live. It like rest of city has gentrified and in process began pushing much of the "old" (people, places and things) out. Unless you've been down there for a long time and have a rent regulated apartment, live in NYCHA or whatever, there aren't many if any low cost housing options.

Back in the day you could get one of those ancient tenement apartments complete with bathtub sink in kitchen for very little money. But the LES was a totally different place then. At least TM got something out of Ben Shaoul, a man who seems single handily responsible for destruction of much of old LES.

If you thought QC's East Village apartment was "dirty", Taylor Meade puts his pal in the shade on that score.

He was a mean-spirited little bitch. In other words, the forerunner of a DLer.

He was not mean-spirited at all.

Getting soused with Quentin and Taylor would've been a laugh riot. You remember those, DL? Before everyone got so fucking angry?

R109

Long as the drinking took place somewhere else than either of their apartments.

If QC's place in any way resembled Taylor Meade's best not even sit down; you'll never know what you'll catch.

Quentin Crisp. Sounds like a cereal.

It was, well close enough anyway.

Ha! ^^

One of the absolute heroes of mine! No need to agree with everything he had said, since I did not have the exact same experience he had gone through. I was brought up in different times, but still could appreciate the rebel spirit he has shown, which was no different in the scale and emotion from mine own. Comparing him to a homosexual hypocrite like Gore Vidal is simply a gross misjudgment.

Gore had a murder's heart with the essay as his modus operandi. Quentin wished to give offense to no one.

I went to An Evening with him shortly after Di died. When asked about her he had no trouble dishing her and Arabs. It was very funny and not what was usually being said about her at the time. I only saw him once walking on East 4th next to Tower.

What was the dish, r116?

On the day of Princess Di’s funeral, I phoned Crisp to ask his opinion of Diana Spencer.

“She was absolute trash,” he roared. “She was Lady Diana before she was Princess Diana — she knew the racket. She knew that royal marriages have nothing to do with love. They are mergers.”

In that conversation, Crisp also lent his opinion about any comparisons between the Princess and Jackie Kennedy.

“Now the English think they have a corner on good behavior. But if they compare Princess Diana’s behavior with Mrs. Kennedy’s ... Oh, how wonderful Mrs. Kennedy was,” he gleefully cried. “And she never said a word. President Kennedy was not only unfaithful, he was a born lecher. If you couldn’t see him for 10 minutes in your office, he ravished your secretary on her desk.”

“But Princess Diana got what she deserved,” he continued. “She was running around with a trashy Arab. She was part of the royal family of England. Didn’t she know any better than that?”

"In England, nobody likes you, the weather is terrible, and the politics are fiendish," he says. Princess Diana "got what she deserved." And Oscar Wilde? "A horrible person. I knew someone who was in prison twice as long and never wrote any of that terrible poetry."

Wow...

One has to remember QV was a product of Edwardian middle class GB; his thoughts and views were shaped by his upbringing, regardless of how he turned out.

You can imagine many others saying the exact same thing, more or less.

World was larger than the cult of Diana would have us believe, and many thought the Princess of Wales was no better than she should be.

Historically daughters of bolters were not welcomed on the marriage market. British society felt a daughter would take after the mother and do a runner.

Diana took up residence in Pity Me Pines hotel and welcomed one and all as she set up her rival court.

Slipped there; make that "QC" not QV

QC are apt initials indeed, as he most certainly offered Queen's Counsel.

OK so- he said that homosexuals don't deserve rights, should be aborted and are incapable of love, along with many other comments, but DL likes him because he's 'in the phonebook' (!!!) and joked about dust in his bedroom. Stop making excuses for him and just realise he was a cunt. You would think from all the years of being treated like shit he would be happy to see gay people live happy and be themselves, but I guess he was just some bitter, self-loathing queen after all.

Hate is so unbecoming an infant, R123.

R123

Quentin Crisp's views were his own affair.

That being said QC like many other femmy gays then and for most part until rather recently (if not currently) are badly treated by the more masculine "establishment" gays. Drag queens, trans, mincing Nancy Boys, etc... all faced as much if not far more scorn within the supposed gay "community" then outside of it. The late John Inman was savaged by UK gays for his drag/pantomime performances, and or playing roles like Mr. Humphries.

Going by how badly QC was treated early on by the gay community of England, it is not difficult to see why perhaps he had no great love for them, and or made remarks attributed. I mean if the group you supposedly belong to doesn't want you around what is to be gained by sticking up for them?

I can’t believe he hated gay liberation and was ashamed of being gay. What a self-loathing shit.