You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
Interpretation
Life is a challenging journey filled with struggles from birth to death.
Quentin Crisp's quote reflects on the harsh realities of life, portraying it as a battle that begins at birth and continues until oneβs death. It emphasizes the inevitability of facing challenges and the often tumultuous nature of human existence, suggesting that life is fraught with difficulties that one must navigate throughout their time on Earth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, this quote illustrates the struggle we all face.
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
What would you be like if you were the only person in the world? If you want to be truly happy you must be that person.
The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call βthe trouble with you.β Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.
If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
The flagrantly gay Quentin Crisp dealt with homophobic bullying by refusing to bow to its onslaught. His number listed in the phone directory, he responded to derogatory remarks accompanied with a stated intent to kill him by asking, "Would you like to make an appointment?"
It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough.
If there were no God, he would have to be invented.
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
They do not need the sun. Who needs the sun when the eyes glow? Darkness. A woolen fog has wrapped the earth, has dropped a heavy curtain. From far away, from beyond the curtain, comes the sound of drops falling on stone. Far, far away - the autumn, people, tomorrow. ("The North")
Originality is being different from oneself, not others.
God intends... our care of Creation to reflect our love for the Creator.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
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