Sebastian Horsley, 1962 – 2010

Eccentrics are a dying breed and we just lost another, when Sebastian Horsley OD'ed the other day. While I didn't love his book, the guy was a true and compelling oddball with a killer sense of style. And that, I can appreciate. He was also quite the quote machine. This is a great interview, but if you don't feel like watching the whole thing—which I recommend you do—here are some bits of his wit and wisdom:

"Cohabitation is the tomb of love."

"We never treat anyone so badly as the one we profess to love."

"The difference between sex for money and sex for free, is that sex for money costs a lot less."

"I look at myself in the mirror because, let’s face it, I’m my type."

"Being a dandy is not a vocation, it’s a condition."

"People get so obsessed with happiness—which always eludes them—when there's plenty of other invigorating experiences available—like hatred or jealousy or revenge or misery. The thing is about misery is, once you get used to it it’s just as agreeable as happiness."

"The motivation for every artist is 'look at me, mum.'"

"Art comes from unhappiness, from broken people."

"Good stories happen to those who can tell them."

"I may be vain, but I’m not conceited."

"A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other."

"The only damage I’m going to do is to myself."

When asked if he planned on being a dandy forever—

"Dandyism is a religion. It’s a kind of martyrdom of sorts . . . You have to give up love sometimes. You have to give up marriage and babies and security—all the things of course that don’t matter. As I said earlier, it’s not a vocation, it’s a condition."

I’ve got to think about my death, as I say in the book. Suicides are the aristocrats of death. And of course, the dandy probably has to end in ruin. If nothing else, at the end of obituary . . . 'he died destitute in the arms of a prostitute.' Most dandies end in ruin or in mental asylums or suicide. . . ."

Comments

[cha davis]

While he may have incorporated the misogynist quote, it came from Mencken.

[pk]

Hard-core drug addiction is God's way of telling you that you have too much money.