“People often refer to a creative ability as a 'gift', and, of course, it is, in that, if I had sat down and logically tried to work out who I was and what I should do, I would never have come up with the idea of writing. It was already there, gratis, a given - a gift.” PeopleIfsShouldWritingIdeasCoursesGivenAbilityCreativeDown AndCome UpWork OutSat Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“When we fail to live up to our ideals, for instance, we might begin to wonder who we are - most people are aware of a discrepancy, I think. There are idiosyncrasies and foibles, but we're not sure if these are essential. Some people think they are the most essential things of all.” PeopleIfsThinkingMightWonderFailingEssentialsIdealsInstanceNot SureWho We AreIdiosyncrasiesDiscrepanciesFoibles Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I feel almost as if I had been born in a vacuum of innocence, and then had to come to terms with the fact that actually, I was born into the middle of history - the rather grimy normality of the 70s, which did, indeed, retain some traces of human innocence, but were also girded about by the demons of experience.” IfsFeelsHumansFactsTermBornMiddleInnocenceDemonVacuumsNormality Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“Anyway, yes, telephones but not mobile phones, fish and chips still wrapped in actual newspaper and still with some kind of flavour, people visiting each other without having to consult their appointment diaries, not being able to record anything from the television; if you missed it you missed it - these were all the kinds of thing that made up the normality of the seventies.” PeopleIfsKindMadeStillsAbleRecordsTelevisionPhonesFishesNewspapersTelephonesSeventiesChipsDiariesMobileVisitingAppointmentsNormalityMobile PhonesFlavourFish And Chips Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“When I think back on it, I have a sense of relaxation, as if in the seventies no one had to try to be anyone other than who they were. I'm sure that's not really true, but that's how I remember it, and I suppose it might be relatively true.” IfsThinkingTryingMightRememberSeventiesRelaxationReally True Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I don't know if Britain ever really achieved that much glamour. We had post-war austerity rather than post-war prosperity, and our cultural products of the time include some pretty dour kitchen-sink dramas of the A Kind of Loving variety. (This kind of film seems disillusioned with the sixties before they've even really begun.)” IfsKnowsKindWarSeemsFilmProductsDramaProsperityVarietyPostsKitchenBritainSixtyGlamourDisillusionedAusterityPost WarKitchen Sinks Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“If there is innocence on Earth again, I tend to imagine it in more [Henry David]Thoreau sort of terms.” IfsEarthTermImagineInnocenceDavid Thoreau Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I'm not sure if there is a cultural loss of innocence specifically associated with the seventies. The oil crisis? The Watergate scandal? I really don't know. There's nothing there on the scale of Hiroshima.” IfsKnowsLossCrisisOilScalesInnocenceNot SureSeventiesScandalHiroshimaWatergateLoss Of Innocence Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“Some people have described Daoism as pantheist, and although there's something in me that resists this designation, I can see that Daoism is consistent with pantheism. If there is any way in which pantheism makes sense and is not redundant, then it is the way (or 'the Way') presented in Daoism.” PeopleIfsWayI CanMake SenseConsistentPantheismRedundantDesignation Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“If we do want to do that [ colonise space to survive, ], then vacuous materialism is not going to be enough for us.” IfsWantEnoughSpaceMaterialismVacuous Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“If future history is not to be just one damned thing after another in space, then what we really have to do is in some way overcome this linear experience of time that makes all existence a quest for something that will never be found.And philosophies such as Zen seem to hint that this is possible.” IfsWayPhilosophySeemsFoundSpaceExistenceOvercomingJust OneQuestsHintsLinear Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to.” IfsMeanSeemsImaginationBuddhismAspectOvercomingDwellingLinearFertilityLinear Time Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“If you look at the ox-herding pictures - specifically the newer set of ten pictures rather than the older set of eight - you see that after the blank circle of the void, the cycle comes back to a river flowing by the roots of a tree (both strong symbols of nature, the life-force, the unconscious) and to the wanderer returning to the market place, which is the realm of human society and activity.” IfsHumansLooksStrongForceTreeActivityTenRiversRootsEightCirclesSymbolsRealmsUnconsciousCyclesVoidBlankHuman SocietyWanderers Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I began researching and writing what I intended as a book-length essay entitled Fascination and Liberation, exploring the question of whether there is a conflict between creativity and the Eastern form of enlightenment. I don't know if I'll ever finish that essay, because I had an experience, after I'd written two or three chapters, in which it seemed to me that my psychic antibodies decisively rejected Buddhism. Interestingly, the rejection felt as if it happened in Zen terms.” IfsKnowsWritingTwoBookFormThreeFeltTermCreativityWrittenHappenedBuddhismConflictEnlightenmentLiberationRejectionLengthChaptersRejectedEntitledExploringPsychicsEasternEssaysFascinationAntibodies Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I feel a little as if the Buddhism is creeping back, but I mention all this simply in order to illustrate that there is, in my life, a fundamental sense of conflict between something that I am calling 'Buddhism' and my creative impulse.” IfsFeelsLittlesOrderCreativeBuddhismCallingConflictFundamentalsImpulse Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I like the concept of an anti-muse, though I'm not quite sure what that is. If there is such a thing in my life, I suppose it is just this weariness, this sense that it is more fulfilling not to exist, to efface all traces, than to limit oneself to the determined expression of manifestation.” IfsExpressionLimitsConceptsOneselfDeterminedManifestationMuseFulfillingWeariness Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“The research reading I did for Fascination and Liberation included some Jung, and I noticed that he had a similar impression of Buddhism to myself, that, if it weren't for certain qualifying clauses, the philosophy would be downright suicidal.” IfsPhilosophyWould BeCertainReadingBuddhismResearchImpressionLiberationSuicidalFascinationClausesJungQualifying Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“Western progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don't-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I'm fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled.” IfsFeelsDoeTwoHandsSeemsPrinciplesProgressFeetBuddhismIdealsWesternContradictionVillageCavesOpposing Author:Quentin S. Crisp
