Quotes by Christopher Isherwood

About Christopher Isherwood:

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English novelist.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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 envi...

Christopher Isherwood

...I remember a rainy, depressing afternoon when she remarked 'What a pity we can't make love, there's nothing else to do,' and he agreed that it was and there wasn't.

Christopher Isherwood

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

Christopher Isherwood

The gramophone keeps reiterating a statement about life with which I do not agree.

Christopher Isherwood

Despair is something horribly simple.

Christopher Isherwood

Most of the time, thank goodness, we suffer quite stupidly and unreflectingly, like the animals.

Christopher Isherwood

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

Chalmers, thanks to Baudelaire, knew all about Taffreuse Juive, opium, absinthe, negresses, Lesbos and the metamorphoses of the vampire ... Needless to say, Chalmers and myself were both virgins, in every possible meaning of the word.

Christopher Isherwood

... he couldn't, as a respectable master in an English public school, have taken us to a brothel. Yet how I wish he had! His introduction to sexual experience would, I feel sure, have been a masterpiece of tact; it might well have speeded up our deve...

Christopher Isherwood

Finally, after a glance at Notre Dame and a brisk trot through the Louvre, we sat down at a cafe on the Place de l'Opera and watched the people. They were amazing -- never had we seen such costumes, such make-up, such wigs; and, strangest of all, the...

Christopher Isherwood

It seemed to me then that to have published a book - any kind of book - would be the greatest possible happiness I could ask from life.

Christopher Isherwood

If you really have talent, you know, you'll go on writing - whatever people say to you.

Christopher Isherwood

Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face - the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man - all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message t...

Christopher Isherwood

A veteran, calm and assured, he pauses for a well-measured moment in the doorway of the office and then, boldly, clearly, with the subtly modulated British intonation which his public demands of him, speaks his opening line, 'Good morning!' And the t...

Christopher Isherwood

The prefect evening...lying down on the couch beside the bookcase and reading himself sleepy...Jim lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other's presenc...

Christopher Isherwood

George smiles to himself, with entire self-satisfaction. Yes, I am crazy, he thinks. That is my secret; my strength.

Christopher Isherwood

By the time it has gotten dressed, it has become he; has become already more or less George — though still not the whole George they demand and are prepared to recognize. Those who call him on the phone at this hour of the morning would be bewilder...

Christopher Isherwood

Does he know about me? George wonders; do any of them? Oh yes, probably. It wouldn't interest them. They don't want to know about my feelings or my glands or anything below my neck. I could just as well be a severed head carried into the classroom to...

Christopher Isherwood

The harassed look is that of a desperately tired swimmer or runner; yet there is no question of stopping. The creature we are watching will struggle on and on until it drops. Not because it is heroic. It can imagine no alternative. Staring and starin...

Christopher Isherwood

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 eve...

Christopher Isherwood

Author Bio

  • NameChristopher Isherwood
  • DescriptionEnglish novelist
  • BornAugust 26, 1904
  • DiedJanuary 4, 1986
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Screenwriter; Novelist