Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Christopher Isherwood

Quote by Christopher Isherwood

“A passenger isn't supposed to concern himself with the running of the ship; that is being taken care of by the crew, anonymous creatures down in the engine-room or up on deck, whom he never meets. But, in this case, I wasn't really a passenger. I was like a lazy or scared or drunken captain lying shut in his cabin when he ought to be on the bridge, giving orders. Sooner or later, I would have to come out and assume command and decide where we were going. But not yet, I told the crew. You don't need me yet. Can't you see I'm sick? You're doing all right without me. Sure, I'll come, when we get near land. Just let me lie here a little longer. Leave me alone, can't you? Let me sleep.”

Quote by Christopher Isherwood

Create image

Author

Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood is a renowned British novelist known for his profound portrayals of life in London and Berlin during the mid-20th century. His works often explore social change, personal identity, and moral dilemmas. more

You May Also Like

“Alexander moved her off him, laid her down, was over her, was pressed into her, crushing her. Anthony was right there, he didn't care, he was trying to inhale her, trying to absorb her into himself. "All this time you were stepping out in front of me, Tatiana," he said. "Now I finally understand. You hid me on Bethel Island for eight months. For two years you hid me and deceived me - to save me. I am such an idiot," he whispered. "Wretch or not, ravaged or not, in a carapace or not, there you still were, stepping out for me, showing the mute mangled stranger your brave and indifferent face." Her eyes closed, her arms tightened around his neck. "That stranger is my life," she whispered. They crawled away from Anthony, from their only bed, onto a blanket on the floor, barricading themselves behind the table and chairs. "You left our boy to go find me, and this is what you found..." Alexander whispered, on top of her, pushing inside her, searching for peace. Crying out underneath him, Tatiana clutched his shoulders. "This is what you brought back from Sachsenhausen." his movement was tense, deep, needful. Oh God. Now there was comfort. "You thought you were bringing back him, but Tania, you brought back me." "Shura...you'll have to do..." Her fingers were clamped into his scars. "In you," said Alexander, lowering his lips to her parted mouth and cleaving their flesh, "are the answers to all things." All the rivers flowed into the sea and still the sea was not full.”

RomancePerfectionThe Summer Garden
Book:The Summer Garden
Create image

“At night in the tent, he leaves the flaps open, to feel the fire outside, to hear Anthony in the trailer, to see her better. She asks him to lie on his stomach, and he does, though he can't see her, while she runs her bare breasts over his disfigured back, her nipples hardening into his scars. You feel that? she whispers. Oh, he does. He still feels it. She kisses him from the top of his head downward, from his buzz-cut scalp, his shoulder blades, his wounds. Inch by inch she cries over him and kisses her own salt away, murmuring into him, why did you have to keep running? Look what they did to you. Why didn't you just stay put? Why couldn't you feel I was coming for you? You thought I was dead, he says. You thought I had been killed and pushed through the ice in Lake Ladoga. And what really happened was, I was a Soviet man left in a Soviet prison. Wasn't I dead? He is fairly certain he is alive now, and while Tatiana lies on top of his back and cries, he remembers being caught by the dogs a kilometer from Oranienburg and held in place by the Alsatians until Karolich arived, and being flogged in Sachsenhausen's main square and then chained and tattooed publicly with the 25-point star to remind him of his time for Stalin, and now she lies on his back, kissing the scars he received when he tried to escape to make his way back to her so she could kiss him. As he drives across Texas, Alexander remembers himself in Germany lying in the bloody straw after being beaten and dreaming of her kissing him, and these dreams morph with the memories of last night, and suddenly she is kissing not the scars but the raw oozing wounds, and he is in agony for she is crying and the brine of her tears is eating away the meat of his flesh, and he is begging her to stop because he can't take it anymore. Kiss something else, he pleads. Anything else. He's had enough of himself. He's sick of himself. She is tainted not just with the Gulag. She is tainted with his whole life. Does it hurt when I touch them? He has to lie. Every kiss she plants on his wounds stirs a sense memory of how he got them. He wanted her to touch him, and this is what he gets. But if he tells her the truth, she will stop. So he lied. No, he says.”

The Summer Garden
Author:Paullina Simons
Create image

“Certainly she can't and won't measure what is measureless, what neither terminates nor repeats, what is beyond even the transcendental of π - though HE doesn't think so - what is beyond polynomials and quadratic formulas, beyond the rational and irrational, the humanist and the logical, beyond the minds of the Cantors and the Dedekinds, the Renaissance philosophers and the Indian Tantrists, what falls instead into the realm of gods and kinds, of myth, of dawn of man, of the mystery of mankind - that there is a space inside her designed solely for him and despite clear Euclidian impossibilities not only does everything, in plenary excess, cleave like it's meant to, but it makes her feel what math cannot explain, what science cannot explain. What nothing can explain.”

The Summer Garden
Book:The Summer Garden
Create image