"They keep telling you, when you’re older, you’ll have experience — and that’s supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it rea… - Christopher Isherwood
"They keep telling you, when you’re older, you’ll have experience — and that’s supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it really any use, would you say?"
"What kind of experience?”
“Well — places you’ve been to, people you’ve met. Situations you’ve been through already, so you know how to handle them when they come up again. All that stuff that’s supposed to make you wise, in your later years.”
“Let me tell you something, Kenny. For other people, I can’t speak — but, personally, I haven’t gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I’ve been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn’t seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier and sillier — and that’s a fact.”
“No kidding, sir? You can’t mean that! You mean, sillier than when you were young?”
“Much, much sillier.”
“I’ll be darned. Then experience is no use at all? You’re saying it might just as well not have happened?”
“No. I’m not saying that. I only mean, you can’t use it. But if you don’t try to — if you just realize it’s there and you’ve got it — then it can be kind of marvelous."
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About Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was a British-American writer.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood
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Additional quotes by Christopher Isherwood
Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure...What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims on the arena have to be saints?
...A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority - not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities - because all minorities are in competition; each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While you’re being persecuted, you hate what’s happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; you’re in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn’t recognize love if you met it! You’d suspect love! You’d think there was something behind it — some motive — some trick.
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He crosses the front room, which he calls his study, and comes down the staircase. The stairs turn a corner; they are narrow and steep. You can touch both handrails with your elbows, and you have to bend your head, even if, like George, you are only five eight. This is a tightly planned little house. He often feels protected by its smallness; there is hardly room enough here to feel lonely. Nevertheless.
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