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885adca
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I do and always shall maintain that it is the privilege of the richer but less mentally endowed members of the community to contribute to the upkeep of people like myself.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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8859dd4
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Everything in the room is like that: unnecessarily solid, abnormally heavy and dangerously sharp.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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319a883
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all around George, approaching him, crossing his path from every direction, is the male and female raw material which is fed daily into this factory, along the conveyor-belts of the freeways, to be processed, packaged and placed on the market... What do they think they are up to? Well, there is the official answer; preparing themselves for life which means a job and security in which to raise children to prepare themselves for life which me..
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mechanism
purpose
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Christopher Isherwood |
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78b3a92
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Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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7c41651
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I was very pink and young and English; and quite prepared for a Continent complete with poisonous drains, roast frogs, bedbugs and vice.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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043b160
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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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000b8c2
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A minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of a threat to the majority, real or imaginary.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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2ca6f2a
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From his heart, he thanks these young animals for their beauty. And they will never know what they have done to make this moment marvelous to him, and life itself less hateful....
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Christopher Isherwood |
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2c79c26
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there was terror in the Berlin air - the terror felt by many people with good reason - and Christopher found himself affected by it. Perhaps he was also affected by his own fantasies. He had always posed a little to his friends in England as an embattled fighter against the Nazis and some of them had encouraged him jokingly to do so. "Don't get killed before I come," Edward Upward had written, "I'll see you unless you've been shot by Hitler..
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nazis
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Christopher Isherwood |
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9d8aab6
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They saw themselves as rear-guard individualists, making a last-ditch stand against the twentieth century. They gave thanks loudly from morn till eve that they had escaped the soul destroying commercialism of the city. They were tacky and cheerful and defiantly bohemian, tirelessly inquisitive about each other's doings, and boundlessly tolerant. When they fought, at least it was with fists and bottles and furniture, not lawyers.
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soul
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Christopher Isherwood |
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5ad390f
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Most of the time, thank goodness, we suffer quite stupidly and unreflectingly, like the animals.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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76b9497
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I always look upon the capacity to save money as little short of miraculous.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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98b5ac9
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You're a nice boy," she chuckled harshly. "You must come round here one evening. I'll teach you something you didn't know before."
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Christopher Isherwood |
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32dd7e3
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Why do I prefer boys? Because of their shape and their voices and their smell and the way they move. And boys can be so romantic. I can put them into my myth and fall in love with them.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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956957a
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Sometimes Arthur talked about his childhood. As a boy he was delicate and had never been sent to school. An only son, he lived alone with his widowed mother, whom me adored. Together they studied literature and art; together they visted Paris, Baden-Baden, Rome, moving always in the best society, from Schloss to chateau, from chateau to palace, gentle, charming, appreciative; in a state of perpeutal tender anxiety about each other's health.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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5db0323
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British Imperialism has been engaged, during the last two hundred years, in conferring upon its victims the dubious benefits of the Bible, the Bottle and the Bomb. And of these three, I might perhaps venture to add, the Bomb has been infinitely the least noxious.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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763363b
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Oh, I know you. You're soft, like most men. You make up romances about people instead of seeing them as they are.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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abc9b78
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she acted as a kind of rough and ready chemical reagent; in certain combinations she produced certain known results.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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089efab
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To say time is evil because evil happens in time is like saying the ocean is a fish because fish happen in the ocean.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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217388c
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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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33131e7
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Here, in their midst, George feels a sort of vertigo. Oh God, what will become of them all? What chance have they? Ought I to yell out to them, right now, here, that it's hopeless?
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Christopher Isherwood |
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0d59156
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Feeling guilty's no reason for staying, or going.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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bbca04c
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This bright place isn't really a sanctuary. For, ambushed among its bottles and cartons and cans, are shockingly vivid memories of meals shopped for, cooked, eaten with Jim. They stab out at George as he passes, pushing his shopping cart. Should we ever feel truly lonely if we never ate alone?
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Christopher Isherwood |
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9670fc6
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George's feathers are ruffled. It's been a long time since last he forgot and let himself get up steam like this...How humiliating! The silly enthusiastic old prof, rambling on, disregarding the clock, and the class sighing to itself, 'He's off again!' Just for a moment, George hates them, hates their brute basic indifference, as they drain quickly out of the room. Once again, the diamond has been offered publicly for a nickel, and they hav..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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7c8b9dd
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George feels flattered and excited...He can't resist slipping into the role Kenny so temptingly offers him.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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923bc72
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Chalmers, like many of the English writers whom he then most admired, felt a strong natural sympathy with everything French. At Rouen he imagined himself as having escaped into a world in which it was possible to speak openly and unaffectedly of all those subjects which in England must be introduced by an apology or guarded with a sneer - poetry, metaphysics, romantic love.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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26475c7
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Just suppose that the dead do revisit the living. That something approximately to be described as Jim can return to see how George is making out. Would this be at all satisfactory? Would it even be worthwhile? At best, surely, it would be like the brief visit of an observer from another country who is permitted to peep in for a moment from the vast outdoors of his freedom and see, at a distance, through glass, this figure who sits solitary ..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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a34e787
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Fond of bewailing the decadence of the modern world, of denouncing the younger generation for its lack of idealism and public spirit, he is blind to the fact of his own enormous selfishness. He is one of those invalids who make use of their real or imagined sufferings to get their own way.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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229756a
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Biliyor musun, senle ben -garip sey- ayni yolun yolcusuyuz aslinda. Ikimizin de evleri biraz buyukce ama gene de bir bakima bize dar geliyor.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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d816d52
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Seytanlari yok ediyorlarsa, polisler melek demektir, oyle degil mi? Eh, akla yatkin. Polislerin melek oldugu yer de ancak timarhane olabilir.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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b4685d8
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Beneath outer consciousness, two other beings, anonymous, impersonal, without labels, had met and recognized each other and clasped hands.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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84bcaa5
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2 NOTES "You broke your other appointment, didn't you?" "I did not! I told you on the phone--these people canceled at the last minute--" "Oh, Geo dear, come off it! You know, I sometimes think, about you, whenever you do something really sweet, you're ashamed of it afterwords! You knew jolly well how badly I needed you tonight, so you broke that appointment. I could tell you were fibbing, the minute you opened your mouth! You and I can't pu..
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love
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Christopher Isherwood |
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d679bc4
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It was as crude as his drafts always were. But it accomplished the enormous feat of making this shapeless blob of potential material emerge 'out of the everywhere into here.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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19eeacf
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And now, as George pours the vodka (giving her a light one, to slow her down) and the scotch (giving himself a heavier one, to catch up on) he begins to feel this utterly mysterious unsensational thing - not bliss, not ecstasy, not joy - just plain happiness - das Glueck, le bonheur, la felicidad - they have given it all three genders but one has to admit, however grudgingly, that the Spanish are right, it is usually feminine, that's to say..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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758d35e
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The supermarket is still open; it won't close till midnight. It is brilliantly bright. Its brightness offers sanctuary from loneliness and the dark. You could spend hours of your life here, in a state of suspended insecurity, meditating on the multiplicity of things to eat. Oh dear, there is so much! So many brands in shiny boxes, all of them promising you good appetite. Every article on the shelves cries out to you, take me, take me; and t..
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loneliness
supermarts
chrisopher-isherwood
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Christopher Isherwood |
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513a4a4
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I mean, what is this life of ours supposed to be for? Are we to spend it identifying each other with catalogues, like tourists in an art gallery? Or are we to try to exchange some kind of a signal, however garbled, before it's too late?
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life
chrisopher-isherwood
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Christopher Isherwood |
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4206d84
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Mont Blanc confronted us, dazzling, immense, cut sharp out of the bue sky; more prosterous than the most baroque wedding cake, more convincing than the best photograph. It fairly took my breath away. It made me want to laugh.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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cd54467
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Even when they are geniuses in spite of it, their masterpieces are invariably warped.
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isherwood
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Christopher Isherwood |
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e937b1d
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If you really have talent, you know, you'll go on writing - whatever people say to you.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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846c9bc
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Waking up begins with 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.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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f007618
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Cambridge exceeded our most macabre expectations ... the arm-chairs, the crumpets, the beautifully-bound eighteenth century volumes, the fires roaring in stoked grates. Each of us had the loan of an absent undergraduate's rooms - bedroom, sitting-room and pantry; all fitted up in a style which, after the spartan simplicity of a public school study, seemed positively sinful.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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af0b4ef
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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 wearers didn't seem in the least conscious of how funny they looked. Many of them even stared at us and smiled, as though we had been the oddities, and not they. Mr. Holmes no doubt found it am..
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Christopher Isherwood |
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a2925cb
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She is merely acclimatizing herself, in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes its coat for the winter. Thousands of people like Frl. Schroeder are acclimatizing themselves. After all, whatever government is in power, they are doomed to live in this town.
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Christopher Isherwood |
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336d989
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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.
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Christopher Isherwood |