Getting old is horrible, but it is interesting . . . one of the things I've realized is that growing old is compulsory, but growing up is optional.

I don't really know what Americans are like. I've no idea. I know a few things about them. In my imagination, they have warm peachy hearts, whereas the English have horrible spiteful withered hearts - success in England inspires envy - in America, it inspires hope.

Getting old is horrible, but it is interesting . . . one of the things I've realized is that growing old is compulsory, but growing up is optional.

To be worthy of assassination takes more than some crappy little book.

My only criticism about Quentin Crisp is that the subversive must be ready to subvert themselves. I may dress for myself, but I undress for everybody else, whereas he never did that - he was never prepared to drop a bomb on everything he did.

I can count all the lovers I've had on one hand...if I'm holding a calculator.

I didn't want to tell Mother I worked as a journalist. She thought I was a prostitute. Locking yourself in a room and inventing characters and conversations which do not exit is no way for a grown man to behave.