“Quentin Crisp (to handsome young man on the street): "What's the matter, sexy? Don't you like dehydrated fruit?”

“Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.”

“As soon as I put my uniform on, the rest of my life solidified around me like a plaster cast. From that moment on, my friends were anyone who could put up with the disgrace; my occupation, any job from which I was not given the sack; my playground, any cafe or restaurant from which I was not barred or any street corner from which the police did not move me on.”

“Without an element of vulgarity, no man can be a work of art...I have to try and think what an artist is, apart from a hooligan who cannot live within his income of praise.”

“I like living in one room and have never known what people do with the room they are not in.”

“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.”

“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.”