Quote

Bad writing is bad not just because the language is humdrum, but the quality of the observation is so poor.

Christopher Isherwood

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Christopher Isherwood
Age: 81 †
Born: 1904
Born: August 26
Died: 1986
Died: January 4
Autobiographer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
County Palatine of Chester
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood
Humdrum
Observation
Quality
Poor
Language
Writing

More quotes by Christopher Isherwood

Image
Sometimes awful things have their own beauty.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
You see, Kenny, there are some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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?
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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
Image
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.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
Only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
She is sighing deeply now with sympathy and delight - the delight of an addict when someone else admits he's hooked, too.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
The sea only drowns its lovers.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
By helping yourself, you are helping humankind. By helping humankind, you are helping yourself. That's the law of all spiritual progress.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
We live in stirring times- tea-stirring times.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
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
Image
I'm very militant, you know, in a quite way.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
I seldom try to probe the mystery of my sloth. I have squandered a gigantic fortune of work hours... seems likely that I'll go on squandering till the very end.
Christopher Isherwood
Image
What it sees there isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament.
Christopher Isherwood