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943a646
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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 tr..
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memories
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Christopher Isherwood |
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b6c063e
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But now isn't simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until -- later of sooner -- perhaps -- no, not perhaps -- quite certainly: it will come.
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present
time
past
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Christopher Isherwood |
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49974c1
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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.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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aacff4e
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Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. It's how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we don't need. Think about it. Fear that we're going to be attacked, fear that there are communists lurking around every corner, fear that some little Caribbean country that doesn't believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear t..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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04186b2
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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.
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present
sleep
life
waking-up
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Christopher Isherwood |
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443c5c6
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For other people, I can't speak - but, personally, I haven't gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I've been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn't seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier - and that's a fact.
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philosophical
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Christopher Isherwood |
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a8f9337
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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.
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inspirational
sentiment
humanity-and-society
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Christopher Isherwood |
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38a804a
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George smiles to himself, with entire self-satisfaction. Yes, I am crazy, he thinks. That is my secret; my strength.
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strength
life
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Christopher Isherwood |
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50e9d0a
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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?
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Christopher Isherwood |
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369ffb4
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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 presence.
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comfort
love
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Christopher Isherwood |
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87e078b
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Now, for example, people with freckles aren't thought of as a minority by the nonfreckled. They aren't a minority in the sense we're talking about. And why aren't they? Because a minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of a threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary. Anyone here disagree with that? If you do, just ask yourself, What would this particular minority do if it..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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e346027
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An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation and immense vistas. Not very far away are Death Valley, and Yosemite, and Sequoia Forest with its giant trees which were growing long before the Parthenon was built; they are the oldest living things in the world. One should visit such places oft..
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risk
nature
freedom
empowerment
happiness
wildness
liberation
self-responsibility
environment
mountains
risk-taking
los-angeles
desert
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Christopher Isherwood |
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654e7ad
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Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn't! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While you're being persecuted, you hate what's happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; you're in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn't recognize love if you met it! You'd suspect love! You'd think there was something behind it--some motive--some trick.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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231b5e0
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You see, Kenny, there are some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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66ae506
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But your book is wrong, Mrs. Strunk, says George, when it tells you that Jim is the substitute I found for a real son, a real kid brother, a real husband, a real wife. Jim wasn't a substitute for anything. And there is no substitute for Jim, if you'll forgive my saying so, anywhere.
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love
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Christopher Isherwood |
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4d371e3
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The past is just something that's over.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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fe35a9c
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These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It is just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, acording to his mood. He misuses them quite ruthlessly - despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public - to put him to bed, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexe..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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cd0891d
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Someone has to ask you a question," George continues meaningly, "before you can answer it. But it's so seldom you find anyone who'll ask the right questions. Most people aren't that much interested...." --
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Christopher Isherwood |
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78d3fdf
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But seriously, I believe I'm a sort of Ideal Woman, if you know what I mean. I'm the sort of woman who can take men away from their wives, but I could never keep anybody for long. And that's because I'm the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets me; and then he finds he doesn't really, after all.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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bcd8a21
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I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in a body - even this old beat-up carcass - that still has warm blood and live semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh!
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Christopher Isherwood |
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19d01c8
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What it sees there isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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d023031
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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 to this live dying creature is: Look at us - we have died - what is there to be afraid of? It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I'm afraid of being rushed.
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living
face
mirror
dying
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Christopher Isherwood |
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7e97d64
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Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. 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.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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66e1af2
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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 s..
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soul
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Christopher Isherwood |
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ef25056
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They keep telling you, when you're older, you'll have experience--and that's supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it really any use, would you say?" "What kind of experience?" "Well--places you've been to, people you've met. Situations you've been through already, so you know how to handle them when they come up again. All that stuff that's supposed to make you wise, in your later years." "Let me tell you somethin..
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life
life-advice
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Christopher Isherwood |
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feaa0c4
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As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It's one of those drunken long shots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relationship right out of its orbit and send it whizzing off on another. Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers.
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relationships
women
losing
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Christopher Isherwood |
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5f0c9a4
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No one ever hates without a cause....
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Christopher Isherwood |
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725db14
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In ten minutes they will have arrived on campus. George will have to be George; the George they have named and will recognise. So now he consciously applies himself to thinking their thoughts, getting into their mood. With the skill of a veteran, he rapidly puts on the psychological makeup for this role he must play.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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d3837ac
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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. It's 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 ev..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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7c6b993
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Only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent.
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intelligence
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Christopher Isherwood |
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f625289
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Lois and Alexander are by far the most beautiful creatures in the class; their beauty is like the beauty of plants, seemingly untroubled by vanity, anxiety or effort.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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467f17c
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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.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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456358b
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This is a tightly planned little house. He often feels protected by its smallness; there is hardly room enough here to feel lonely.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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af81f31
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the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure...What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims on the arena have to be saints? ...A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority - not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities - because all minorities are ..
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minorities
persecution
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Christopher Isherwood |
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6966a6d
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I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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ebc5913
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His life has been lived, so far, within narrow limits and he is quite naive about most kinds of experience; he fears it and yet is wildly eager for it. To reassure himself, he converts it into epic myth as fast as it happens. He is forever play-acting.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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78cc43b
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I always say that I only wish to have three sorts of people as my friends, those who are very rich, those who are very witty, and those who are very beautiful.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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89d1383
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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.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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55ffc5c
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She is sighing deeply now with sympathy and delight - the delight of an addict when someone else admits he's hooked, too.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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f3cb203
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The Nazis were right to hate the Jews. But their hating of Jews was without a cause. No one hates without a cause.
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minority
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Christopher Isherwood |
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e499086
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George feels that, even if all this double talk hasn't brought them any closer to understanding each other, the not-understanding, the readiness to remain at cross-purposes, is in itself a kind of intimacy.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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4197f2b
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I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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3c6100f
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In another moment, when I had drunk exactly the right amount of champagne, I should have a vision. I took a sip. And now, with extreme clarity, without passion or malice, I saw what Life really is. It had something, I remember, to do with the revolving sunshade. Yes, I murmured to myself, let them dance. They are dancing, I am glad.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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2dd5d77
|
For a few minutes, maybe, life lingers in the tissues of some outlying regions of the body. Then, one by one, the lights go out and there is total blackness. And if some part of the non-entity we called George has indeed been absent at this moment of terminal shock, away out there on the deep water, then it will return to find itself homeless.
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Christopher Isherwood |