Christopher Isherwood Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Christopher Isherwood

  Philosophy, Philosophical, World

  65 Copy quote

• 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.

  57 Copy quote

• 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

  33 Copy quote

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

  Christopher Isherwood

  Cameras, Someday, Fixed

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  102 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

  36 Copy quote

• Sometimes awful things have their own beauty.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Awful, Sometimes, Single Man

  29 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)

  9 Copy quote

• In order to get the worst possible first impression of Los Angeles one should arrive there by bus, preferably in summer and on a Saturday night.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Summer, Night, Order

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  22 Copy quote

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

  Christopher Isherwood

  Writing, People, Should

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  26 Copy quote

• The sea only drowns its lovers.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Sea, Lovers

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  12 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.

  16 Copy quote

• 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)

  5 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

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  6 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.

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  21 Copy quote

• No one ever hates without a cause.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Hate, Causes

  Christopher Isherwood (2013). “A Single Man: A Novel”, p.49, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• To live sanely in Los Angeles ... you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Art, Thinking, Voice

  Christopher Isherwood (1966). “Exhumations: Stories, Articles, Verses”

  4 Copy quote

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