Coming home on my commute this evening and arriving at Golders Green, I read the latest offering quote/thought for the day written up by London Underground Station(Tube) supervisor Chris on the noticeboard at Golders Green Underground train station. When Chris is on duty, he likes to keep us commuters/travellers smiling with various quotes he finds.
The quote chosen today is from Quentin Crisp.

Quentin Crisp – Englishman in New York

Quentin Crisp 25 December (1908 – 21 November 1999) was a fascinating & colourful character, Crisp was a  flamboyant openly Gay Englishman, he was an author, actor and was a witty raconteur.
Crisp wrote and appeared in popular and hit one man plays describing life as a homosexual in British society 1920s-60s.

In 1975, the excellent actor John Hurt (known for his amazing performance in ‘The Elephant Man’), in one of his early roles, played Crisp in an entertaining  and thoughtful TV adaptation of Crisp’s autobiography called ‘The Naked Civil Servant.’ In 2009, Hurt reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in ‘An Englishman in New York’, which covered the latter years of Crisp’s life in New York.

Well worth watching!

Pop/rock star Sting dedicated his song ‘Englishman in New York, (1987) to Crisp. He had remarked jokingly “that he looked forward to receiving his naturalisation papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported.” In late 1986 Sting visited Crisp in his NYC apartment and was told over dinner – and the next three days – what life had been like for a homosexual man in the largely homophobic Great Britain of the 1920s to the 1960s. Sting was both shocked and fascinated and decided to write the song. It includes the lines:
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,
Be yourself no matter what they say.
Here is wiki link about him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp

MORE QUOTES FROM QUENTIN CRISP – THE ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK
………………………………………………………………

A gentleman doesn’t pounce, he glides.
– Quentin Crisp

….

I don’t hold with abroad, and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned.
– Quentin Crisp
…..
If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.
– Quentin Crisp
…..

I want to write the words that people want to print.
-Quentin Crisp

…

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; and the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evening.
– Quentin Crisp

~ ~ ~

The trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
– Quentin Crisp