I came first to America in 1977 at the invitation of a man who wanted to make my life story into a musical. But my agent said it was not to be and it was never done. So I went back, but I'd seen New York, and I wanted to live there. Because everybody talks to you in the street. See, nobody talks to you in England.

America believes in freedom. The English don't believe in it. They don't believe in happiness.

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

If you don't stay in some days, you can't recharge your batteries.

Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.

You don't have to do anything.

What I wanted most of all was to use sex as a weapon to allure, subjugate, and, if possible, destroy the personality of others.