10 CRISP QUIPS

FROM QUENTIN’S THE LAST WORD… 1. “Had I been a woman, none of my life would have happened and I could have been happy!” 2. “If you are reading this and are gay, think of me as one of your own even though you now know the truth. If it’s confusing for you, think how confusing it has been for me these past ninety years.” 3. “When I was young and swanning about the West End of London, men would look at me and smile and I would think, “Oh, this is wonderful. I’m the cat’s whiskers.” It never occurred to me what I would have to do once I’d won their attention. By the time I realized, from my perspective, it was too late.” 4. “I gave up sex at 30, but continued to masturbate for many years, which is a cozy form of sex in which you are not defiled. You don’t run into any danger, you know what you want and it is entirely satisfactory.” 5. “I have become a self-apparent, elderly foreigner of dubious gender and I don’t think anyone’s ever really aspired to be that.” 6. “I have come to learn that all homosexuals are not alike and of all of them I am probably the least representative, not least because it turns out I am transgender rather than gay.” 7. “I abandoned England for New York and advise everyone that if they want to be happy they should come to America. Most English people do not want to be happy.” 8. “My make-up is always by me. I think nearly all artists do their own make-up. Particularly Ms Collins who knows just how to look like Joan Collins. I mean, she’s looked the same way for 50 years.” 9. “You don’t want to die on the same day somebody of significance dies. Princess Diana died at the same moment that Mother Teresa died, and somehow it all got muddled up and they both became saints. Had Diana died on a different day there might have been a more sensible assessment of her character.” 10. “In some ways I was uniquely unprepared for living a long life. Had I known how long I would live for, I wouldn’t have said as much as I did early on.”