Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwoodwas an English novelist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 August 1904
CountryUnited States of America
morning lying sunshine
In the eternal lazy morning of the Pacific, days slip away into months, months into years; the seasons are reduced to the faintest nuance by the great central fact of the sunshine; one might pass a lifetime, it seems, between two yawns, lying bronzed and naked in the sand.
morning past squad
The talk of pale, burning-eyed students, anarchists and utopians all, over tea and cigarettes in a locked room long past midnight, is next morning translated, with the literalness of utter innocence, into the throwing of the bomb, the shouting of the proud slogan, the dragging away of the young dreamer-doer, still smiling, to the dungeon and the firing squad.
morning differences giving
What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people —well, like you were saying about minorities, this morning. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?
morning lying home
Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what’s called at home.
bad good imagination life physique plenty
Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination
gay taste kind
At one campus where I was lecturing, I asked a friend, "How many of my colleagues know I'm gay?" He answered, "All of them." I wasn't surprised. But, just the same, it was kind of spooky, because not one of them had ever given me the faintest sign that he or she knew. If I had spoken about it myself, most of them would have felt it was in bad taste.
hate causes nazi
The Nazis were not right to hate the Jews. But their hating of Jews was not without a cause. No one ever hates without a cause.
summer night order
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.
home nursing self
Hollywood's two polar types are the cynically drunken writer aggressively nursing a ten-year-old reputation and the theatrically self-conscious hermit who strides the boulevard in sandals, home-made shorts and a prophetic beard, muttering against the Age of the Machines.
years ideas people
I'm horrified to find, as I look at these diaries of twenty-five years ago or more, that I don't remember who the people were. "Bill and Tony were constantly in and out. We went to La Jolla" - or something. I haven't the bluest idea who they were!
artist culture talent
The Nazis hated culture itself, because it is essentially international and therefore subversive of nationalism. What they called Nazi culture was a local, perverted, nationalistic cult, by which a few major artists and many minor ones were honored for their Germanness, not their talent.
doubt needs belief
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
fighting honor trying
I must honor those who fight of their own free will, he said to himself. And I must try to imitate their courage by following my path as a pacifist, wherever it takes me.
way militant knows
I'm very militant, you know, in a quite way.