Christopher Isherwood Quotes

Quotes about:

• A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp. And the world seems so fresh as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Thinking, Silence, Noise

  "Fictional character: George". "A Single Man", www.imdb.com. 2009.

  56 Copy quote

• We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Philosophy, Philosophical, World

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• Only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Intelligent, Silliness, Capable

  Christopher Isherwood, James J. Berg, Chris Freeman (2001). “Conversations with Christopher Isherwood”, p.171, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  31 Copy quote

• I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Thinking, Cameras, Passive

  Goodbye to Berlin "Berlin Diary" (1939)

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• I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Cameras, Someday, Fixed

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• Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Funny, Life, Witty

  Christopher Isherwood (1987). “The Wishing Tree: Christopher Isherwood on Mystical Religion”, Vedanta Press

  101 Copy quote

• By helping yourself, you are helping humankind. By helping humankind, you are helping yourself. That's the law of all spiritual progress.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Spiritual, Law, Progress

  34 Copy quote

• Sometimes awful things have their own beauty.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Awful, Sometimes, Single Man

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• I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Doubt, Needs, Belief

  "Christopher and His Kind". Book by Christopher Isherwood, p. 306, 1976.

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• Bad writing is bad not just because the language is humdrum, but the quality of the observation is so poor.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Writing, Quality, Language

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• I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Book, Knows

  Christopher Isherwood (2013). “A Single Man: A Novel”, p.129, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!

  Christopher Isherwood

  Mistake, Past, Thinking

  Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, James P. White (1989). “Where Joy Resides: An Isherwood Reader”, Vintage

  25 Copy quote

• We live in stirring times- tea-stirring times.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Tea, Stirring

  Christopher Isherwood (2008). “The Berlin Stories”, p.18, New Directions Publishing

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• One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Writing, People, Should

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• A minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Real, Majority, Minorities

  Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, James P. White (1989). “Where Joy Resides: An Isherwood Reader”, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• I often feel that worse than the most fiendish Nazis were those Germans who went along with the persecution of the Jews not because they really disliked them but because it was the thing.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Nazi, Persecution, Jew

  "Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49". Interview with W.I. Scobie, www.theparisreview.org. Spring 1974.

  15 Copy quote

• It seems to me that the real clue to your sexual orientation lies in your romantic feelings rather than your sexual feelings. If you are really gay, you are able to fall in love with a man, not just enjoy sex with him.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Falling In Love, Sex, Real

  Interview with Winston Leyland on 1973. "Conversations with Christopher Isherwood". Book edited by James J. Berg and Chris Freeman, p. 106, 2001.

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• The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Heart

  "Exhumations". Book by Christopher Isherwood. Chapter: "Los Angeles", p. 160, 1966.

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• If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.

  Christopher Isherwood

  World, Want, Single Man

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• I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Men, Thinking, Hair

  Goodbye to Berlin "Berlin Diary" (1939)

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• The sea only drowns its lovers.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Sea, Lovers

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• The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Atheist, Believe, Character

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• I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Doe, Entertainment, Entertainment Industry

  "Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49". Interview with W.I. Scobie, www.theparisreview.org. Spring 1974.

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• What irritates me is the bland way people go around saying, 'Oh, our attitude has changed. We don't dislike these people any more.' But by the strangest coincidence, they haven't taken away the injustice; the laws are still on the books.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Attitude, Book, Taken

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• California is a tragic country - like Palestine, like every Promised Land.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Country, Land, California

  Christopher Isherwood, James J. Berg, Chris Freeman (2001). “Conversations with Christopher Isherwood”, p.91, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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