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.
Christopher IsherwoodA 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 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 everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.
Christopher IsherwoodI 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!
Christopher IsherwoodIf itโs going to be a world with no time for sentiment, itโs not a world that I want to live in.
Christopher IsherwoodDo you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesnโt! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While youโre being persecuted, you hate whatโs happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; youโre in a world of hate. Why, you wouldnโt recognize love if you met it! Youโd suspect love! Youโd think there was something behind itโsome motiveโsome trick.
Christopher Isherwood