Quotes from Goodbye to Berlin

Christopher Isherwood ·  208 pages

Rating: (6.7K votes)


“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.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“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, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“...I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“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, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“The really destructive feature of their relationship is its inherent quality of boredom. It is quite natural for Peter often to feel bored with Otto - they have scarecely a single interest in common - but Peter, for sentimental reasons, will never admit that this is so. When Otto, who has no such motives for pretending, says, "It's so dull here!" I invariably see Peter wince and looked pained. Yet Otto is actually far less often bored than Peter himself; he finds Peter's company genuinely amusing, and is quite glad to be with him most of the day. Often, when Otto has been chattering rubbish for an hour without stopping, I can see that Peter really longs for him to be quiet and go away. But to admit this would be, in Peter's eyes, a total defeat, so he only laughs and rubs his hands, tacitly appealing to me to support him in his pretense of finding Otto inexhaustibly delightful and funny.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin



“All women like men to be strong and decided and following out their careers. A woman wants to be motherly to a man and protect his weak side, but he must have a strong side too, which she can respect ... If you ever care for a woman, I don't advise you to let her see that you've got no ambition. Otherwise she'll get to despise you.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“No. Even now I can't altogether believe that any of this really happened...”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“İkimiz de güldük. "Sally" dedim, "senin sevdiğim yanın ne biliyor musun? Bu kadar kolayca kandırılabilmen. Hiç kandırılamayan insanlar öylesine can sıkıcı ve ruhsuz oluyorlar ki!"
"Beni hâlâ seviyor musun, Chris, sevgilim?"
"Evet, Sally. Seni hâlâ seviyorum."

Onu bir daha görmedim. Yaklaşık iki hafta sonra, tam onu aramam gerektiğini düşündüğüm bir sırada, Paris'ten bir kart aldım: "Buraya dün gece geldim. Yarın doğru dürüst yazarım. Kucak dolusu sevgiler." Arkadan mektup gelmedi. Bundan bir ay sonra Roma'dan bir kart daha aldım. Adres yoktu: "Bir iki güne kadar yazarım." diyordu. Bu altı yıl önceydi.
Şimdi ben ona yazıyorum.
Sally, bunu okuduğun zaman -eğer bir gün okuyacak olursan- lütfen bunu bir takdirname- sana verebileceğim en yürekten takdirname olarak kabul et...”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“Everything in the room is like that: unnecessarily solid, abnormally heavy and dangerously sharp.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“È strano come ogni persona sembri avere un luogo suo… specialmente se non ci è nata.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin



“You, Christopher, with your centuries of Anglo-Saxon freedom behind you, with your Magna Carta engraved upon your heart, cannot understand that we poor barbarians need the stiffness of a uniform to keep us standing upright.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they're capable of anything. That's just why they're so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment...”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


“I like hearing the sound of your voice, but I don’t care a bit what you’re saying.”
― Christopher Isherwood, quote from Goodbye to Berlin


About the author

Christopher Isherwood
Born place: in Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire, England, The United Kingdom
Born date August 26, 1904
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Mnóstwo zjawisk, które dziś określamy mianem syndromów, miało wtedy prostsze nazwy. Czasy były prostsze. To właśnie dlatego ludzie mówią o nich "stare, dobre czasy".”
― Zadie Smith, quote from The Autograph Man


“Maybe it was this: The name of a person marked for murder is just a name, but the face makes real the cost of violence, for if we have the nerve to look, we can see in any face our own vulnerability.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from The Good Guy


“There are very few, very fuckin' few people, Kia, who get what's precious in this world. They work their asses off for pure shit and think they'd fight and die to keep it. You don't fight and die for shit. You fight and die for things that matter. You are the first woman I've met outside a life that leads you to understand that shit who gets that. And straight up, baby, you gotta know, I like that a fuckuva lot.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Heaven and Hell


“Here was a man, when comes such another?”
― Jeffrey Archer, quote from Sons of Fortune


“He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you. —Nietzsche”
― Robert Kirkman, quote from Rise of the Governor


Interesting books

I Only Have Eyes for You
(14.2K)
I Only Have Eyes for...
by Bella Andre
The Beauty Detox Solution: Eat Your Way to Radiant Skin, Renewed Energy and the Body You've Always Wanted
(2.4K)
The Beauty Detox Sol...
by Kimberly Snyder
Voluptuous Vindication
(31)
Voluptuous Vindicati...
by Rose Wynters
The Untold History of The United States
(1.8K)
The Untold History o...
by Oliver Stone
The First Circle
(6.3K)
The First Circle
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Code
(4.5K)

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.